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Queenie Hetherton 

BV 

MARY J. HOLMES 

A* published in the Kew York Weekly, Vol. 35, No. 31 



G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 








ympARY of OONGHES3. 
Two Cdpies' ttecuiyjt! 

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Copyright, i8So, bv 
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Copyright, 1S83, by 
DANIEL HOLMES 
i^All rights reserved') 
Copyright, iqo8, by 
DANIEL HOLMES 

Queen ie H ether ton. 



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TO 

MRS. JULIE P. SMITH, 

OF HARTFORD, CONN., 

I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF QUEENIE, 

IN MEMORY OF 

THE DEAR LITTLE GIRL WHO SLEEPS AMOJVO 
THE NSW ENGLAND HILUk 

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C O N T E N T S, 


t. Introducing some of the Characters. 
II. Introducing more of the Characters. 

III. Mr. Beresford and Phil 

IV. The Investigation 

V. Phil Interviews his Grandmother. .. 

VI. Getting ready for Remette 

VII. On the Sea 

VIII. Reinette Arriv'es 

IX. Reinette at Home 

X. The Two Reinettes 

XI. On the Roclcs 

XII. Reinette and Mr. Beresiord 

XIII. Those People 

XIV. Reinette and Phil 

XV. Down by the Sea 

XVI. Marge^ La Rue 

XVII. Queenie and Margery 

XVIII. Old Letters 

XIX. The Little Lady of Hetherton 

XX. Arrivals in Merrivale 

XXI. The Dinner 

XXII. Margery and the People 

XXIII. Perfecting themselves in French. ... 

XXIV. “ I love you, Queenie” 

XXV. Phil’s Wooing 

XX VI. Phil goes Away 

XXVII. How Queenie bore the News 

XXVIII. Mrs. La Rue’s Resolution 

XXIX. Letters from Mentone 

XXX. Trying to read the Page 

XXXI. The Interview 

XXXII. Christine 

XXXIII. Reinette’s Interview with Margery. 
XXXIV. Reinette’s Interview with Christine 

XXXV. Margery and her Mother 

XXXVI. Margery’s Illness 

XXXVTI. The Letter 

XXXVIII. Mourning for Phil 

XXXIX. Tina 

X L The Letters ... 

XLl Queenie Learns the Truth 

XLJI. Christine’s Story 

XLIII. The Sisters 

XLIV. The Explosion 

XLV. Magnolia Park 

XLVI. At the St. James 

XI. VII. The Yellow Fever 

XLV III The Occupant of No. 40 

XLIX Sister Christine 

L. Phil’s Storj' 

Ll. Conclusion 


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QUEENIE HETHERTON. 


CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCING SOME OF THE CHARACTERS. 

S HE morning mail for Merrivale had just ar- 
rived, and the postmaster was distributing the 
letters. Col. Rossiter, who lived in the large 
stone house on the Knoll, had two ; one from 
his wife, who, with his two daughters, was 
spending the summer at Martha’s Vineyard, and one 
from his son Philip, a young graduate from Harvard, 
who had been off on a yachting excursion, and was 
coming home for a few days before joining his mother 
and sisters at the sea-side. There was also one for 
Mrs. Lydia Ann Ferguson, who lived on Cottage Row, 
and was the fashionable dressmaker of the town. Mr. 
Arthur Beresford, the only practicing lawyer in Merri- 
vale, had six, five of which he read hastily, as he stood 
in the post-office door, and then fora moment studied the 
superscription of the other, which was soiled and travel- 
worn, and bore a foreign postmark. 

‘‘From Mr. Hetherton," he said, to himself. **What 
can he want, I wonder ?” and openinor the letter, he read 
as follows : 

[7J 


s 


INTRODUCTORY. 


“Hotel Meurice, Paris, June loth, i8 — . 

“ Mr. Beresford : 

Dear Sir : — You will undoubtedly be surprised to 
hear that I am coming home. Once 1 expected to live 
and die abroad, but recently, with my failing health, tliere 
has come over me an intense longing to see America 
once more. 

“ After an absence of nearly twenty-three years, it wilt 
seem almost as strange to me as to my daughter Reinette, 
who has never been in an English-speaking country. 
She is as anxious to come as 1 am, and we have engaged 
passage on the Russia, which sails from Liverpool the 
25th. I have no idea whether the old house is habitable 
or not. All important changes and repairs I prefer to 
make myself, after Reinette has decided what she wants ; 
but, if possible, I wish you to have a few rooms made 
comfortable for us. The large chamber which looks 
toward the town and the river 1 design for Reinette, 
and will you see that it is made pretty and attractive. If 
I remember rightly, there used to be in it a mahogany 
bedstead older than I am. Remove it, and substitute 
something light and airy in its place. Reinette does not 
like mahogany. Put simple muslin curtains at the win- 
dows, and have nothing but matting on the floors ; Rei- 
nette detests carpets. And if you know of a pair of fine 
carriage horses and a lady's saddle pony, have them ready 
for inspection, and if they suit Reinette I will take them. 
If you chance to hear of a trusty, middle-aged woman 
suitable for a housekeeper at Hetherton Place, retain her 
until Reinette can see her ; and please have the conser- 
vatory and garden full of flowers. Reinette is passion- 
ately fond of flowers — fond, in fact, of everything bright 
and pretty. She has just come in, and says telT you to 
be sure and get her some cats and dogs, so I suppose you 
must do it ; but, for Heaven’s sake, don’t fill the house 
with them — two or three will answer. I can’t abide them 
myself. Reinette is waiting for me to go to dinner, and 
1 must close. Shall telegraph to you from New York as 
soon as the vessel arrives, and shall follow on first train. 

“Truly, Frederick Hetherton. 

“ Spare no m ^ney to make the pkice comfortable.” 

Arthur Beresford’s face was a puzzle as he read this 


IN TROD UCTOR Y. 


9 


Icttci frt3*m one whose business agent and lawyer he 
merely was, and whom he scarcely remembered at all 
except as a dashing, handsome young man, whom every- 
body called fast, and whom some called a scamp. 

“ Cool, upon my word !” he thought, as he folded the 
letter and leturned it to his pocket. “A nice little job 
he has given me to do. Clean the house; air Miss Rei- 
nette’s bed-chamber; move the old worm-eaten furniture, 
and substitute something light and cheerful which Rei- 
nette will like; put muslin curtains to her windows; get 
up a lot of horses for her inspection; fill the garden with 
flowers, where there’s nothing but nettles and weeds 
growing now; and, to crown all, hunt up a menagerie of 
dogs and cats, when, if there is one animal more than 
another of which I have a mortal terror, it is a cat. And 
this Reinette is passionately fond of them. Who is she, 
any way ? I never heard before that Mr. Hetherton had 
a daughter; neither, I am sure, did the Rossiters or Fer- 
gusons. Mrs. Peggy tvould be ready enough to talk of 
her Paris graaddaughter if she had one. But we shall 
see. Mr. Hetherton’s letter has been delayed. He sails 
the 25th. That is day after to-morrow, so I have no time 
to lose, if I get everything done, cats and all. I wish he 
had given the job to somebody else. Phil Rossiter, 
now, is just the chap to see it through. He’d know 
exactly how to loop the curtains back, while as for catSy 
I have actually seen the fellow fondling one in his arms. 
Ugh!” and the young lawyer made an impatient gesture 
with his hands, as if shaking off an imaginary cat. 

Just at this point in his soliloquy, Colonel Rossiter, 
who had been leisurely reading his two letters inside the 
office, came out, and remembering that he was a connec- 
tion by marriage with the Hethertons, Mr. Beresford 
detained him for a moment by laying a hand on his arm, 
and thus making him stand still while he read the letter 
to him, and asked what he thought of it. 

“ Think ?” returned the colonel, trying to get away 

I* 


lO 


IN TROD UCTOR K 


from Jiis companion, “ I don’t think anything; I’m in too 
great a hurry to think — a very great hurry, Mr. Beies- 
ford, and you must excuse me from taking an active part 
in anything. I really have not the time. Fred. Hether- 
ton has a right to come home if he wants to — a perfect 
right. I never liked him much — a stuck-up chap, who 
thought the Lord made the world for the special use of 
the Hethertons, and not a Rossiter in it. No, no; I’m in 
too great a hurry to think whether I ever heard of a 
daughter or not — impression that I didn’t; but he might 
have forty, you know. Go to the Fergusons ; they are 
sure to be posted, and so is Phil, my son. By the way, 
he’s coming home on next train. Consult him ; he’s just 
the one, he’s nothing else to do, more’s the pity. And, 
now, really, Mr. Beresford, you must let me go. I’ve 
spent a most uncommon length of time talking with you 
and I bid you good-morning.” 

And so saying, the colonel, who among his many 
peculiarities numbered that of being always in a hurry, 
though he really had nothing to do, started toward home 
at a rapid pace, as if resolved to make up for the time he 
had lost in unnecessary talk. 

Mr. Beresford looked after him a moment, and then, 
remembering what he had said of Philip, decided to 
Cefer his visit to Hetherton Place until he had seen th^ 
young man. 

Two hours later, the Boston train stopped at the 
station, and Phil Rossiter came up the long hill at his 
usual rapid, swinging gait, attracting a good deal of at- 
tention in his handsome yatching-dress, which became 
him so well. The first person to accost him was his 
aunt, Mrs. Ferguson, who insisted upon his stopping for 
a moment, as she had a favor to ask of him. Phil was 
the best natured fellow in the world, and accustomed te 
have favors asked of him, but he was tired, and hot, ant, 
in a hurry to reach the quiet and coolness of his owr 
home, which was far pleasanter, and more suited to hi:^ 


IN TROD UCTOR Y, 


II 


taste than the close, stuffy apartment into which Mrs, 
Ferguson led him, and where his cousin sat working on 
a customer’s dress. 

Anna Ferguson, who had been called for her mother, 
but had long ago discarded Lydia as too old-fashioned, 
and adopted the name of Anna, was eighteen, and a blue- 
eyed, yellow-haired blonde, who would have been very 
pretty but for the constant smirk about her mouth, and 
the affected air she always assumed in the presence of 
her superiors. Even with Phil she was never quite at 
her ease, and she began at once to apologize for her hair, 
which was in crimping-pins, and for her appearance 
generally. 

“Ma never ought to have asked you into the work- 
room, and me in •such a plight,” she said. But Phil 
assured her that he did not mind the work-room, and did 
not care for crimping-pins — he’d seen bushels of them, 
he presumed. But what did his aunt want ? he was in 
something of a hurry to get home, as his father was ex- 
pecting him, and would wonder at his delay. 

Phil knew he was stretching the truth a little, for it 
was not at all likely his father would give him a thought 
until he saw him, but any excuse would answer to get 
away from the Fergusons, with whom at heart he had 
little sympathy. 

What Mrs. Ferguson wanted was to know if he had 
ever heard his mother or sisters speak of a dressmaker 
at Martha’s Vineyard, a Miss Margery La Rue, who was 
a Frenchwoman, and who had written to Mrs. Ferguson, 
asking if she wished to sell out her business, and if it 
would pay for a first-class dressmaker to come to Merri- 
vale. 

‘‘Here’s her letter, read it for yourself if ycu can,” 
Mrs. Ferguson said. “ Anny and me found it hard work 
to make it out, the writing is so finefied.” 

Philip took the letter, which was written in that uae, 
peculiar hand common to the French, and which was a 


13 


IN TROD UCTOR Y. 


little difficult at first to decipher. But the language was 
in good English and well expressed, and the writer, Miss 
Margery La Rue, late from Paris, wished to know if 
tiicre was an opening for a dressmaker in Merrivale, and 
if Mrs. Ferguson wished to sell out, as Miss La Rue had 
been told she did. 

“ I wish to mercy ma would get out of the hateful 
business and take that horrid sign out of her windov/ 
Pd split it up quick for kindlings. Pm always ashamed 
when I see it,” Miss Anna said, petulantly, for she was 
foolish enough and weak enough to ascribe all her fan- 
cied slights to the fact that her mother was a dressmaker 
and had a sign in her window. 

Mrs. Ferguson, however, did not share in this feeling, 
and reprimanded her ambitious daughter sharply, while 
Philip, who knew how sore she was upon the point, 
asked her if she really thought she would be any better 
with the obnoxious sign gone and her mother out of 
business. 

“Of course / wouldn’t be any better. Pm just as 
good as anybody now,” Miss Anna retorted, with a toss 
of her head. “But you know as well as I, that folks 
don’t think so, and ma and I are not invited a quarter of 
the time just because we work for a living. Even your 
sisters Ethel and Grace would not notice me if I wasn’t 
vheir cousin. As it is, they feel obliged to pay me some 
attention. I hate the whole thing, and I hope I shall live 
to see the day when I can go to the sea-side, and wear 
handsome dresses and diamonds, and have a girl to wash 
the dishes and wait on me. There’s the bell, now : some- 
body to get some work done, of course,” and Anna 
flounced out of the room to wait upon a customer, while 
her mother asked Philip again if he had ever heard his 
sisters speak of Miss La Rue. 

Philip never had, but promised to inquire wdien he 
went to the Vineyard, as he intended doing in a few days. 
Then, not caring for a second encounter with his cousin, 


INTRODUCTORY, 


13 

he went out of the side door and escaped into the street* 
breathing freer in the open air and wondering why Anna 
need always to bother him about being slighted because 
she was poor, as if that made any difference. 

Mr. Beresford was the next to accost Phil, and as tlie 
Iletherton business was uppermost in his mind, lie 
walked home with the young man and opened the sub- 
ject at once by telling him of the letter and asking if iie 
had ever heard of Reinette Hetherton. 

“ Reinette Hetherton — Reinette,” Philip repealed. 
“ No, never ; but that’s a pretty name, and means ‘ little 
queen.’ I wonder what kind of a craft she is? Frenchy, 
of course, and 1 hate the French. She must be my 
cousin, too, as I have never heard that Mr. Hetherton 
married a second time. When will she be here ?” 

Phil was interested in the girl at once, but Mr. Beres- 
ford, who was several years older, was more interested 
in the numerous arrangements he was to make for her 
reception. They had reached the Knoll by this time, 
and were met in the hail by the colonel, who did not 
manifest the least annoyance because of Mr. Beresford’s 
presence, but on the contrary seemed glad to have him 
there, as it relieved him from any prolonged stay with 
his son. 

“ Eh, Phil, glad to see you,” he said. “ Hope you had 
a pleasant time then, in an absent kind of way, with a 
wave of his hand, “ make yourself at home. You are 
quite welcome, I am sure ; both of you,” bowing to Mr. 
Beresford. “ And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will leave 
you. Shall see you at lunch time, good-morning, gen- 
tlemen ;” and with another very ccurtly bow, he walked 
ra;:idly away to the green-house, ’\\here he was watching 
the development of a new kind of bean found in Florida 
the previous winter. 

Left to themselves the two young men resumed theii 
conversation concerning Reinette Hethertor, and Mr, 
Beresford showed Phil hei father’s letter. 


14 


INTROD UCTOR Y. 


“ Upon my word,'* said Phil, “ one would suppose 
this Reinette to be a very queen, the way her father 
defers to her. Everything must beni to her wishes ; 
bedstead, matting flowers, housekeeper, horses, and cats 
and dogs; that’s rich ; but I’ll take the last job off your 
hands. I know of a whole litter of young puppies which 
ril have in readiness for her, besides half a dozen or 
more cats.” 

“ Yes, thank you. I am sure I shall be glad to be rid 
of the cat business,” said Mr. Beresford, ” but tell me, 
please, about Mrs. Hetherton, Reinette’s mother, I was 
too much of a boy when she went away, and you, of 
course, were a mere child, but you must have heard of 
her from your mother. They were sisters, I think.” 

“ Half sisters,” Philip replied. “ My grandfather Fer- 
guson was twice married, and mother was the child of 
his first wife. Grandma Ferguson, as most everybody 
calls her, is only my step-grandmother, and Mrs. Hether- 
ton was her daughter Margaret, and, as I’ve heard, the 
most beautiful girl in Merrivale. It was her beauty 
which attracted Mr. Hetherton, and I imagine it was a 
love match, for he was proud as Lucifer and very rich, 
while she was poor and — and — well, she was a Ferguson,” 
and Philip changed color a little as he said this ; then, 
as Mr. Beresford looked curiously at him he added, 
laughingly, “Not that I am in the least ashamed of my 
relatives. They do not affect me one whit. I am just 
what I am, and a cart load of Fergusons can’t hurt me, 
though I’ll confess that grandma and aunt Lydia do try 
me at times, but wait and see what Miss Reinette thinks 
of them. When are you going over to investigate the 
place, and would you like me to go with you ?” 

Nothing could suit Mr. Beresford better, for though 
he was several years older than Phil, the two were fast 
friends, and later in the day, when it was beginning to 
grow cool, they rode together toward “ Hetherton Place,” 


INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS. 15 

which had been tenantless since the death of General 
Hetherton, ten or twelve years before. 


CHAPTER II. 

INTRODUCING MORE OF THE CHARACTERS. 

ETHERTON PLACE was nearly a mile dis- 
tant from the village, and on the side of a 
hill, the ascent of which was so gradual that 
on reaching the top one was alw'ays surprised 
to find himself so far above the surrounding 
country, of which there were most delightful views. 
Turn which way you would the eye was met with lovely 
landscape pictures of grassy meadows and plains, of 
wooded hill-sides, sloping down to the river’s brink and 
stretching away to the sandy shores of the ponds or little 
lakes, which, when the morning sun was shining on 
them, sparkled like so many diamonds, in the sunny 
valley of Merrivale, where our story opens. 

Merrivale was not a very large or very stirring town, 
for its sons and daughters had a habit of turning their 
backs upon the old home and seeking their fortunes in 
the larger cities or in the West, where nature seems to be 
kinder and more considerate to her children, in that her 
harvests there yield richer stores with less of that toil of 
the hands and sweat of the brow so necessary among the 
rocky hills of New England. There were no factories 
in Merrivale, for the waters of the lazily-flowing Chic- 
opee were insufficient for that, but there were shoe- 
shops there, and the men who worked in them lived 
mostly in small, neat houses on Cottage Row, or on the 
new streets which were gradually creeping down the 
hill to the river and the railroad track, over which almost 



i6 INTRODUCING MORE CHARAC2ERS, 


every hour of the day heavily-laden trains went rolling 
on to the westward. 

Years and years ago, when the Indians still lurked .n 
the woods around Merrivale, and bears were hunteo oa 
Wachuset Mt., and the howl of the wolf was sometimes 
heard in the marshy swamp around old Cranberry Pond, 
llie entire town, it is said, was owned by the Hethertons, 
who traced their ancestry in a direct line back as far as 
the Norman conquest. Theirs of course was the bluest 
blood in Merrivale, and theirs the heaviest purse, but 
purses will grow light in time, and blood grow weak as 
well, and the Hetherton race had died out one by one, 
until, so far as anybody knew, there was but a single 
member remaining, and he as good as dead, for any good 
he did to the people of Merrivale. For nearly twenty- 
three years Frederick Hetherton had lived abroad, and 
during that time, with one exception, he had never com- 
municated with a single individual except his lawyers, 
the Beresfords — first Henry, the elder, who had been his 
friend and colleague, and, after his death, with Arthu-, 
who succeeded to his brother’s business. 

When Frederick first came home from college he was 
a dashing, handsome young man, with something \^ry 
fascinating in his voice and manner ; but to the young 
girls of Merrivale he was like the moon to the humble 
brook on which it shines, but always looks down. They 
could watch, and admire, and look up to him from a 
distance, but never hope for anything like an intimete 
recognition, for the Hethertons held themselves so high 
that very few were admitted to the charmed circle of 
their acquaintance. 

Mrs. Hetherton, Frederick’s mother, had come from 
the vicinity of Tallahassee, and with the best blood of 
Florida in her veins, was, if possible, more exclusiA^e 
than her husband, and labored assiduously to instill her 
notions into the mind of her son. 

After her death, however, whether it was that be 


INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS, 7 

found life at Hetherton Place too lonely, or that lie 
missed her counsels and instructions, he was oftener with 
the young people of Merrivale ; and rumors were at last 
aJoat of frequent meetings between the heir of Hetherton 
and Margaret Ferguson, whose father was a stone mason, 
but a perfectly honest, upright, and respectable man, and 
whose mother was then familiarly known in the com- 
munity as the Aunt Peggy who sold root beer and gin- 
gerbread in the summer time, and Boston brown bread 
and baked beans in the winter. 

During Mrs. Hetherton’s life-time her carriage had 
occasionally stopped before the shop door while she 
bartered with Peggy for buns and cakes, but anything 
like social intercourse with the Fergusons the lady would 
have spurned with contempt. 

Great, therefore, was her astonishment wlien Col. 
Paul Rossiter, who had been educated at West Point, 
and whom, in a way, she acknowledged as her equal, fell 
in love with and married Mary Ferguson, who was the 
child of her father’s first marriage, and in no way related 
to Peggy, and who was quite as well educated as most 
of the girls in town, and far prettier than any of them. 
The Fergusons were all good-looking, and Mary's daz- 
zling complexion and soft blue eyes caught the fancy ol 
Col. Rossiter the first time he reined his horse in from 
of the shop where root beer and gingerbread were sold. 

Col. Rossiter at the time was thirty-five or more, and 
had never evinced the slightest interest in any one of the 
opposite sex. Indeed, he rather shunned the society of 
ladies and was looked upon by them as a very peculiar 
and misanthropical person. He belonged to a good 
family, was an orphan and rich, and had no one s wishes 
to consult but his own ; and so, a^er that first call at 
Peggy’s establishment, when Mary entertained and 
waited upon him, it was remarked th£>t he seemed very 
fond of root beer, and that it took him some vine to 
drink it, for his chestnut mare was often tied before the 


1 8 INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS, 


shop door for half an hour or more, while he sat in the 
little room where Mary was busy with the shoes she 
stitched, or closed^ as they called it, for the large shop 
near by. At last the gossip reached Mrs. Hetherton, 
whose guest the colonel was, and who felt it her duty to 
remonstrate seriously with the gentleman. The colonel 
listened to her in a dazed kind of way, until she said, 
although no harm would come to him, he certainly could 
not wish to damage the girl’s good name by attentions 
which were not honorable. 

Then he roused up, and without a word of reply, 
started for town, and entering Peggy’s shop, strode on 
to the back room, where Mary sat with her gingham 
apron on and her hands besmeared with the shoemaker’s 
wax she was obliged to use in her work. They were, 
nevertheless, very pretty hands, small, and white, and 
dimpled, and the colonel took them both between his 
own, and before the astonished girl knew what he was 
about, he asked her to be his wife, and told her how 
happy he would make her, provided she would forsake 
all her family connections and cleave only unto him. 

“I do not mean that you are never to see them,” he 
said, “but anything like intimacy would be very unde- 
sirable, for there would be a great difference between 
your position as my wife and theirs, and ” 

He did not finish the sentence, for Mary had dis- 
engaged her hands from his by this time, and he always 
insisted that she st»-uck at him, as she rose from her seat 
and, with flashing eyes, looked him straight in the face, 
while she said : 

“Thank you. Col. Rossiter. You have said enough 
for me to understand you fully. You may be proud, 
but I am prouder still, and I decline your offer, which, 
the way you made it, was more an insult than an honor. 
I know I am poor, and that father is only a day laborer, 
but a better, truer, worthier man never lived, and I hate 
you for thinking to make me ashamed of him ; while his 


IN:l±kODUCJNG more characters. If 

wife, though no' my mother, has always been kind to 
me, and I will never turn my back upon her, never ' 
The man who marries me will marry my family *oo, or. 
at least, will recognize them. I wish you good-morning, 
sir,” and she walked from the room with all the hauteur 
of en offended duchess, leaving the crest-fallen colonel 
a’^ne, and very much bewildered and uncertain as to 
what had happened. 

It came to him at last that he was refused by Mary 
Ferguson, the girl who stitched shoes for a living, and 
whose step-mother made and sold root beer. 

“ Is the girl crazy ?” he asked himself, as he precipi- 
tately left the house. “ Does she know what she is doing 
to refuse me, who would have made her lady ! and she 
says she hates me, because I will not marry her family. 
Well, well, it’s my first experience at love-making, and 
I think it will be my last.” 

But it was not, for Mary Ferguson’s blue eyes haa 
played the very mischief with the colonel’s heart-strings, 
and he could not give her up, and the next day he told 
her so in a letter of three pages, which she promptly 
returned to him, with the words : 

“ The man who marries me must recognize my 
family.” 

A week went by, and then the colonel sent his love a 
letter of six pages, in which he capitulated generaUy. 
Not only would he recognize the family, but in proof 
thereof, he would buy the large stone house called the 
Knoll, which was at present unoccupied, and he had 
heard was for sale. Here they would live, in the summer 
a: least, and during the winter she might like Boston for 
a change, but he would not insist upon anything which 
did not meet her approval. All he wanted was herself, 
and that he must have. 

This was a concession, and Mary, who, while standing 
by her family, had not been insensible to the good for- 
tune offered her, surrendered, and in less than a month 


20 INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS. 


was Mrs. Colonel Rossiter, a'jd mistress of the handsome 
stone house, where her father was always made welcome, 
and her stepmother treated with kindness and consider- 
ation. 

We have dwelt thus long upon the wooing and wxd- 
ding of the colonel, because the Rossiters and Fergusons 
have as much to do with this story as the Hethertons, and 
because the marriage of Mary Ferguson w^as the means 
of bringing about another marriage, without which 
Reinette, our dainty little queen, could never have been 
the heroine of this romance. Mary would hardly have 
beea human if her sudden elevation to riches and rank 
had not affected her somewhat. It did affect her to a 
certain extent, though the villagers, who watched her 
curiously, agreed that it did not turn her head, and that 
she fitted wonderfully well in her new place. 

Acts for all the world as if she was born to that 
grandness, and ain’t an atom ashamed of me nuther,” 
Mrs. Peggy said, never once suspecting that Mrs. Ros- 
siter, as she mingled more and more in her husband’s 
world, did sometimes shiver, and grow cold and faint at 
her old-fashioned ways and modes of speech. 

As for the father he enjoyed to the full seeing his 
daughter a lady, but laughed at her endeavors to change 
and polish him. 

“ ’Tain’t no use, Mollie,” he would say. “You can’t 
make a whistle of a pig's tail, and you can’t make a 
gentleman of me. My hard old hands have worked too 
long in stone and mortar to be cramped up in gloves or 
to handle them wide forks of yourn. I shall alius eat 
with my knife ; it comes nateral-like and easy, and shall 
drink my tea in my sasser. But I like to see you go 
chrough with the jimcracks, and think you orter, if the 
colonel wants you to. You alius had the makin’ of a 
lady, even when your hands, where the diamonds is now, 
was cut and soiled with hard waxed ends, and nobody’ll 
think the wus of you, unless it’s some low-minded, 


INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS. 21 


jealous person who, when they see you in your best silk 
goivnd may say how you was once poor as you could be, 
and closed nigger shoes for a livin’. That’s human 
nater, and don’t amount to nothin’. But, Mollie, th^^ugh 
you can’t lift Peggy nor me, there’s your sister Ma.garet 
g rowin’ up as pretty and smart a gat as there is in 
Merrivale. You can give her a hist if you will, and 
mebby she’ll make as good a match as you. She’s the 
prettiest creetur I ever see.” 

And in this John Ferguson was right, for Margaret 
was even more beautiful than her sister Mary. To the 
same dazzling purity of complexion, and large, lustrous 
blue eyes, she added a sweetness of expression and a 
softness of manner and speech unusual in one who had 
seen so little of the world. Mrs. Rossiter, who was 
allowed to do whatever she pleased, acted upon her 
father’s suggestion and had her sister often with her, 
and took her to Boston for a winter, and to Saratoga for 
a season, and it was in the Rossiter carriage that 
Frederick Hetherton first remarked the fresh, lovely 
young, face which was to be his destiny. He might, and 
probably had, seen it before in church, or in the shop 
where he occasionally went for beer, but it had never 
struck him just as it did, when, iramed in the pretty 
bonnet, with the blue ribbons vieing with the deeper, 
clearer blue of the large bright eyes which flashed a 
smile on him as he involuntarily lifted his hat. 

Fred Hetherton was very fond of pretty faces, and it 
was whispered that he did not always follow them for 
good, and there were rumors afloat of large sums of 
money paid by his father for some of his love affairs, 
but, however that might be, his intentions were always 
strictly honorable with regard to Margaret Ferguson. 
At first his pride rebelled a little, for he was quite as 
proud as any of the Hethertons, and he shrank from 
Aunt Peggy more than Mr. Rossiter had done. But 
Margaret’s beauty overcame every scruple at last, and 


22 INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS. 


when his father, who had heard something of it in town, 
asked him if it were true that he v/as running after old 
Ferguson’s daughter, he answered boldly, “ Yes, and I 
intend to make her my wife.” 

A terrible scene ensued, and words were spoken 
which should never have passed between father and son, 
and the next day Fred Hetherton was missing from his 
home and Margaret Ferguson was missing from hers, 
and two days later Aunt Peggy went over to Hetherton 
Place and claimed relationship with its owner by virtue 
of a letter just received from her daughter who said she 
was married the previous day, and signed herself “ Mar- 
garet Fletherton.” Then the father swore his biggest 
oaths, said his son was his no longer, that he was glad 
his wife had died before she knew of the disgrace, and 
ended by turning Peggy from his door and bidding her 
never dare claim acquaintance with him, much less 
relationship. What he wrote to his son in reply to a 
letter received from him announcing his marriage no 
one ever knew, but the result of it was that Frederick 
determined to go abroad at once, and wrote his father to 
that effect, adding that with the fortune left him by his 
mother he could live in luxury in Europe, and asked no 
odds of anyone. This was true, and Mr. Hetherton had 
no redress, but walked the floors of his great lonely 
rooms foaming with rage and gnashing his teeth, while 
the Fergusons were crying over the letter sent to taem 
by Margaret, who was then in New York, and who wrote 
of their intended departure for Europe. 

She was very happy, she said, though she should like 
o come home for a few days and bid them good-by, but 
Frederick would not allow it. She would write them 
often, and never, never forget them. Then came a few 
lines written on ship-board, and a few more from Paris, 
telling of homesickness, of Frederick’s kindness, and the 
pearls and blue silk dress he had bought her. Then fol- 
lowed an interval of silence, and when Margaret wrote 


INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS, 


23 


again a change seemed to have come over her, and her 
letters were stilted and constrained like those of a per- 
son writing under restraint, but showed signs of culture 
and improvement. She was still in Paris, and had 
masters in French and music and dancing, but of her 
husband she said very little, except that he was well, and 
once that he had gone to Switzerland with a party of 
French and English, leaving her alone with a waiting- 
maid whom she described as a paragon of goodness. 

To this letter Mrs. Rossiter replied, asking her sister 
if she were really content and happy, but there came no 
response, and nothing more was heard from Margaret 
until she wrote of failing health and that she was going 
to Italy to see what a milder climate would do for her. 
Weeks and weeks went by, and then Mr. Hetherton 
iiimself wrote to Mr. Ferguson as follows : 

“ Geneva, Switzerland, May 15th, 18 — . 

** Mr. Ferguson . — Your daughter Margaret died sud- 
denly of consumption in Rome, the 20th of last month, 
and was buried in the Protestant burying ground. 

“ Yours, 

“ F. Hetherton.” 

Nothing could be colder or more unsatisfactory than 
were these brief lines to the sorrowing parents, to whom 
would have been some comfort to know how their 
^' ughter died, and who was with her at the last, and if 
iitie had a thought or word for the friends across the 
water, who would never see her again. But this solace 
was denied them, for though Mrs. Rossiter wrote twite 
to the old address of Mr. Hetherton in Paris, she never 
received a reply, and the years passed on, and the history 
of poor Margaret’s short married life and death was still 
shrouded in mystery and gloom, when General Hetherton 
died without a will ; and, as a matter-of-course, his pro- 
perty went to his only child, who, so far as the people 
knew, had never sent him a line since he went abroad. 


24 


INTRODUCING MORE CHARACTERS, 


Upon the elder Mr. Beresford, who had been the 
general’s legal adviser, devolved the duty of hunt’ng up 
the heir, who was found living in Paris and who wrote 
to Mr. Beresford, asking him to take charge of the 
estate and remit to him semi-annually whatever income 
there might be accruing from it. The house itself was 
.o be shut up, as Frederick wrote that he cared little if 
the old rookery rotted to the ground. He never should 
go back to live in it : never return to America at all, 
but he would neither have it sold or rented, he said. 
And so it stood empty year after year, and the damp and 
mold gathered upon the roof, and the boys made the 
windows a target for stones and brick-bats, and the 
swallows built their nests in the wide-mouthed chimneys, 
and, with the bats and owls flew unmolested through the 
rooms, where once the aristocratic Mrs. Hetherton 
trailed her velvet gowns ; and the superstitious ones of 
Merrivale said the place was haunted and avoided it after 
nightfall, and over the whole place there brooded an air 
of desolation and decay. 

Then the elder Beresford died, and Arthur, who was 
many years younger, succeeded him in business and 
took charge of the Hetherton estate, and twice each year 
wrote formal letters to Mr. Hetherton, who sent back 
letters just as formal and brief, and never vouchsafed a 
word of information concerning himself or anything 
pertaining to his life in France, notwithstanding that 
Mrs. Rossiter once sent a note in Mr. Beresford’s letter, 
asking about her sister’s death, but to this there was no 
reply, except the message that she died in Rome as he 
had informed her family at the time. 

Thus it is not strange that the letter to Mr. Beresford 
announcing his return to America, and speaking of his 
daughter, vvas both a surprise and revelation, for no one 
liad ever dreamed there was a child born to poor Mar- 
garet before her death. In fact, the Fergusons them- 
selves ha4 almost forgotten the existence of Mr. Hether- 


MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL. 


25 


ton, and had ceased to speak of him, though John, who 
had now been dead four yeais or more had talked much 
in his last sickness of Margaret, and had said to his 
wife : 

“ Something tells me you will yet be brought very 
near to her. 1 don’t know exactly how, but in some 
way she 11 come back to you ; not Maggie herself per- 
haps, but something ; it is not clear quite.” 

And now at last she was coming back in the person 
of a daughter, but grandma Ferguson did not know it 
yet. Only Mr. Beresford and Philip held the secret, for 
Col. Rossiter counted for nothing, and these two were 
driving toward Hetherton Place on the warm June 
afternoon of the day when our story opens. 


CHAPTER III. 


MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL. 



CARCELY any two men could be more unlike 
each other than the two who walked slowly 
through the Hetherton grounds, commenting 
on the neglected, ruinous condition every- 
where apparent, and the vast amount of labor 
necessary to restore the park and garden to anything 
like beauty or order. 

Mr. Beresford, as the elder, will naturally sit first for 
his photograph. In age he was probably not more than 
thirty-five, though he looked and appeared somewhat 
older than that. He had received a first-class education 
at Yale, and when he entered the law he devoted himself 
to it with an energy and assiduity which, had he lived 
in a larger town than Merrivale, would have placed him 


26 


MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL. 


at the head of his profession, ihere was no half way 
work with him. Whatever he did, he did with all his 
might, and his services were much sought after by 
people in the towns around Merrivale, so that he was 
always occupied and busy. 

In stature he was medium size for a man, but finely 
formed, with a head set erect and square upon his 
shoulders, and crowned with a profusion of dark brown 
hair, which curled slightly around his forehead. His 
complexion was dark, and his eyes those round, bright, 
res.tless eyes which make you uncomfortable when fixed 
upon you, because they seem to be reading your inmost 
secrets and weighing all your thoughts and motives. 

Belonging to one of the oldest and best families in 
the country, he was proud of his blood and proud of his 
name — foolishly proud, too, in many things, for had he 
been Anna Ferguson, that sign in her mother’s window 
would have annoyed him even more then it did the 
young lady herself, while the memory of the beer and 
the gingerbread once sold by her grandmother, and the 
cellar walls and chimneys built by her grandfather, 
would have driven him nearly frantic. Indeed, it was a 
wonder to him how Phil Rossiter could endure the 
Fergusons, whom he considered wholly vulgar and 
second-class. And yet, Arthur Beresford was a man of 
sterling qualities, and one whom everybody respected 
and liked, though not as they liked Phil Rossiter — 
good-natured, easy-going, indolent Phil, who, though 
always ready to help whenever his services were needed, 
had never been known to apply himself for any length 
of time to a single useful thing. 

Business he had none ; employment none ; but for 
this useless life his mother was, perhaps, more in fault 
than he, for she was virtually the moving power of the 
family, or, as the villagers termed it, “ the man of the 
house.” 

i^lways peculiar, Col. Rossiter had grown more and 


MR, BERESFORD AND PHIL, 


ay 

more peculiar and absent-minded with every year of liis 
married life, and as a natural consequenee his wife, 
whose character was stronger than his, bad developed 
into a self-reliant, independent woman, who managed 
her husband and his affairs admirably, and for the most 
part let her children manage themselves. Especially 
was this the case with Phil, who was her idol, and whom 
she rather encouraged in his idleness. There was money 
enough, she reasoned, for the colonel was one of those 
fortunate men in whose hands everything turns to gold, 
and there was no need for Phil to apply himself to 
business for several years at least. By and by when he 
came to marry, it might be well enough to have some 
profession, but at present she liked him near her ready 
to do her bidding, and no queen ever received more 
homage, or a mother more love, than did Mrs. Rossiter 
from her son. For her sake he would do anything, dare 
anything, or endure anything, even to the Fergusons, 
and that was saying a great deal, for they were not a 
family whose society he could enjoy. But his mother 
was a Ferguson, and he was bound to stand by them, 
and if the vulgarity of Mrs. Lydia, his Uncle Tom's 
wife, or the silly affectation of his cousin Anna, ever 
made him shudder, he never gave a sign, but bore up 
bravely and proudly, secure in his own position as a 
Rossiter and a gentleman. 

To his grandmother he was always attentive and 
kind. She was not his own blood relation, he reasoned, 
and she was old, and so he allowed her to pet and fondle 
him to such an extent as sometimes to fill him with 
disgust. Only once had he rebelled, and that when a 
boy of ten. ‘^Granny’s baby,” she sometimes called 
him, and this sobriquet had been adopted by his school- 
fellows, who made his life so great a burden that at last 
on one occasion, when she said to him as she patted his^ 
young, fresh face, “Yes, he is granny’s baby,” he re- 
volted openly, and turning fiercely upon her, exclaimed ; 


s8 MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL. 

‘‘You just hush up, old woman, I’ve had enough ot 
that. I ain’t your baby. I’m ten years old, and wear 
roundabouts, and I’ll be darned if I’ll be called baby 
any longer.” 

She never called him so again, or kissed him either, 
until the night three years later when he was going 
away to school next day. And then she did not offer it 
herself. She said good-by to him at his father’s house, 
and went back to her own home, where she had lived 
alone since her husband’s death, and which seemed 
lonelier to her than ever, because on the morrow Phil 
would be gone. Phil w^as her idol, her pride, and his 
daily visits had made much of the sunshine of her life, 
and as she undressed herself for bed, and then went to 
wind the tall clock in the kitchen corner, the tears rolled 
down her face and dropped upon the floor. She was a 
little deaf, and standing with her back to the street door 
she neither saw nor heard anything until she felt a pair 
of arms close tightly around her neck, and Phil’s lips 
were pressed against hers. 

For the dear Lord’s sake how you scart me. What 
on airth brought you here !” she exclaimed, turning 
toward him with her nightcap border flying back, and 
her tallow candle in her hand. 

Phil was half crying, too, as he replied : 

“ I could not go away without kissing you once 
more, and having you kiss me. You haven’t done so 
since that time I got so plaguy mad and called you 
names. I’ve cried about it fifty times. I’ll bet. I want 
you to forgive it, and kiss me, too. I’m awful sorry 
granny.” 

The pet name for her in his babyhood, and which he 
had long since discarded, dropped from his lips natu- 
rally now, and putting down her candle the old lady 
took him in her arms and nearly strangled him as she 
sobbed : 

“ Forgive you, Phil ? Of course I will, with aT my 


MR. BERESFORD AND PHIL. 


29 


heart, and kiss you, too. Any woman, young or old, 
would like to kiss a mouth like yours.” 

We do not believe our readers will like Philip Ros« 
siter the less for this little incident, or because even in 
his young manhood he had a mouth which any woman, 
young or old, might like to kiss. A handsome mouth 
it was, with full red lips which always seemed just ready 
.0 break into a merry, saucy laugh, but which you felt 
intuitively had never been polluted by an oath, or vulgar 
word, or low insinuation against any one. In thought, 
and word, and deed, he was as pure as any girl, and held 
all women in the utmost respect, because his mother 
was a woman. 

At the time our story opens Phil was twenty-five 
years old, though from the delicacy of his complexion 
he looked younger, and might easily have passed for 
twenty-one. Tall, willowy, and graceful in figure, he 
was, like all the Ferguson race, blue-eyed and fair, with 
a profusion of soft brown hair, which curled just enough 
to save it from stiffness. People called him handsome, 
with his frank, open, boyish face and winning srnile * 
but he hated himself for it, as a handsome man was an 
abomination, he thought, and he had times of hating 
himself generally, because of that natural distaste to 
application of any kind, which kept him from being 
what he felt sure he was capable of being if he could but 
rouse himself to action. Had he been a woman, he 
would have made a capital dressmaker, for he knew all 
the details of a lady’s dress, from the arrangement of her 
hair to the fit of her boot, and could detect at a glance 
any incongruity in color, and style, and make-up. To 
his sisters he was invaluable as a critic, and no article 
which he condemned was ever worn again. It was 
strange, considering how unlike to each other they were, 
that Phil and Mr. Beresford should be such friends, but 
each understood perfectly the peculiarities of the other, 
and each sought the other’s society continually. With 


30 


THE INVESTIGAITC^., 


Mr. Beresford the fact that Phil was a Rossiter covered 
a multitude of sins, while more democratic Phil cared 
but little who Mr. Beresford’s family were, but liked the 
lawyer for himself, and spent a great deal of time in his 
office, where he once actually begun the study of law, 
but gave it up as soon as a party of his college friends 
asked him to join an excursion to the Adirondacks, and 
he never resumed it again. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE INVESTIGATION. 

ELL, this is a jolly place for the kind of girl 
I fancy Miss Reinette to be,” Phil said, as 
he strolled through the grounds, putting 
aside with his cane the weeds, and shrubs, 
and creeping vines, which choked not only 
the flower-beds, but even the walks themselves 

Everywhere were marks of ruin and decay, and the 
house seemed worse than all the rest, it was so damp 
and gloomy, with doors off their hinges, floors half 
rotted away, and the glass gore from most of the lower 
windows. 

“Seems like some old haunted castle, and I actually 
feel my flesh creep, don’t you ?” Phil said to his com- 
panion, as they went through room after room below, 
and then ascended the broad staircase to the floor 
above. 

“ Suppose we first take the room intended for Miss 
Reinette ?” Mr. Beresford suggested, and they bent their 
steps at once toward the large chamber with the bay- 
window overlooking the town and the country for milcf 
and miles away. 



THE INVESTIGATION, 


31 


As they stepped across the threshold both men 
involuntarily took off the hats they had worn during 
thetr investigation below. Perhaps neither of them was 
conscious of the act, or that it was a tribute of respect to 
the unknown Reinette, who was in the thoughts of 
both as they stood in the great silent, gloomy room, 
from which the light was excluded by the heavy shutters 
which had withstood the ravages of time. This had evi- 
dently been the guest chamber during the life of Mrs. 
Hetherton, and the furniture was of solid mahogany and 
of the most massive kind, while the faded hangings 
around the high-post bed were of the heaviest silken 
damask. But the atmosphere was close and stifling, 
and Mr. Beresford drew back a step or two while Phil 
pressed on until he ran against the sharp corner of the 
bureau and uttered a little cry of pain. 

Por Heaven’s sake come out of this,” Mr. Beresford 
exclaimed. “ Let’s give the whole thing up, and let 
Mr. Hetherton fix his own old rookery. We can never 
make it decent.” 

“Just hold on a minute,” said Phil, making his way 
to a window, “wait till I let in a little air and light. 
There,” he continued, as he opened window after win- 
dow and pushed back the heavy shutters, one of which 
dropped from the hinges to the ground. “ There, that 
is better, and does not smell so like an old cheese cup- 
board, and look, Beresford, just see what a magnificent 
view. Ten villages, as I live, and almost as many ponds, 
and the river, and the hills, with old Wachusett in the 
distance.” 

It was indeed a lovely landscape spread out before 
them, and Phil, who had an artist’s eye for the beautiful, 
enjoyed it to the full, and declared it as fine as anything 
he had seen in Switzerland, where he went once with 
his father just before he entered college. Mr. Beresford 
was, however, too much absorbed in the duties devolv- 
ing upon him to care for views, and Phil himself soon 


32 


ThE INVESTIGAT/ON. 


came back to the room and examined it minutely, from 
the carpet, molding on the floor, to the rotten hanging* 
on the bed, which he began at last to pull down, thereby 
raising a cloud of dust, from which Mr. Beresford beat 
a hasty retreat. 

“ I tell you what,” he said, ‘‘ it’s of no kind of use, 
I shall wash my hands of the entire job, and let Miss 
Reinette arrange her own room.” 

“Nonsense! you won’t do any such thing,” said 
Phil. “ It’s not so very terrible, though I must confess 
it’s a sweet-looking boudoir for a French lady to come 
to, but it can be fixed easy enough. I’ll help. I can see 
the end from the beginning. First, we’li have two or 
three strong women. I know where they are. I’ll get 
’em. Then we’ll pitch every identical old dud out of 
the window and make a good bonfire — that falls natu- 
rally to the boys. Then we, or rather, the women, will 
go at the room, hammer and tongs, with soap, and sand, 
and water, and burnt feathers, if necessary. Then we’ll 
get a glazier and have new window-lights put in, and a 
painter with paint-pot and brush, and a paperer to cover 
the walls with — let me see, what shade will suit her 
complexion, I wonder. Is she skim-milky, with tow 
hair, like the Fergusons generally, or is she dark, like 
the Hethertons, do you suppose ?” 

“I’m sure 1 don’t know or care whether she is like a 
Dutch doll or black as a nigger. I only wish she would 
stay in France, where she belongs,” growled Mr. Beres- 
ford, very hot and very sweaty, and a good deal soiled 
with the dust from the bcd-curtains which Phil had 
shaken so vigorously. 

“ Take it cool, old fellow,” returned Phil. “ You’ll 
be head and ears in love, and go down on your knees to 
her in less than a month.” 

“She’ll be the first woman I ever went on ray knees 
to,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil continued : 

“ Reinette is light, of course ; there never was a 


THE INVESTIGATION, 


33 


Ferguson yet who had not a complexion like a cheese, 
so we will have the paper a soft, creamy tint, of some 
intricate pattern, which she can study at her leisure, 
mornings when she is awake and does not wish to get 
up. That settles the paper, and now for the furniture 
— something light — oak, of course, and real oak, no 
sham for the queen. Mosquito net — coarse, white lace, 
trimmed with blue, for blondes and blue always go 
together. So, we’ll loop the muslin window curtains 
back with blue, and have some blue and white what do 
you call ’em, Beresford — those square things the girls 
are always making for backs of chairs, and bureaus, and 
cushions ; you know what I mean ?” 

“No I don’t. I’m not a fool to know all the para- 
phernalia of a girl’s bed-chamber,” said Mr. Beres- 
ford, while Phil replied, with imperturbable good 
nature : 

“ Neither am I a fool because I can no more enter a 
room without knowing every article and color in it, and 
whether they harmonize or not, than you can help 
hearing of a projected law-suit without wondering if 
you shall have a hand in it ; chacun a son gout, my good 
fellow. You see I am beginning to air my French, as I 
dare say this little French queen speaks atrocious 
English. Do you understand French, Beresford ?” 

“ Scarcely a word, and I am glad I do not. English 
is good enough for me,” said Mr. Beresford, thinking to 
himself, however, that he would privately get out his 
grammar and French reader, and brush up his knowl- 
edge of the language, for if the foreigner, in whom he 
was beginning to feel a great deal of interest, really 
could not speak English readily, it would never do to 
give so much advantage to handsome, winning Phil, 
who startled him with the exclamation : 

“ I’ve got it ! Tidies / — that’s what I mean. Blue and 
white tidies on the bureau, with little fancy scent-bottles 
standing round — new-mown hay jockey-clrb, eau-de- 


V 


THE INVESTIGATION, 


cologne, the very best that Mrs. Maria Ferina Regina 
can make ; and soap! By Jove ! she shall have the very 
last cake of the box I got in Vienna nine years ago ; 
I keep it in the drawer with my shirts, and collars, and 
things, for perfumery ; but I’ve got to give it up now. 
Not but Miss Reinette will bring out a cart-load, but I 
wish her to know that we Americans have foreign soap 
sometimes, as well as she. Then, there’s powder; I 
must get sister Ethel to give me some of Pinaud’s.” 

“ Powder ! What do you mean ?” Mr. Beresford 
asked, in unfeigned surprise ; and Philip replied : 

“ Now, Beresford, are you putting on, or what ? Is 
it possible you have lived to be forty years old *’ 

“Only thirty-five,” interrupted Mr Beresford, and 
Phil continued : 

“ Well, thirty-five, then. Have you lived to be thirty- 
five, and don’t know that every grand lady has a little 
powder-pot and puff-ball on her dressing bureau, just to 
touch her skin and make it feel better when she’s moist. 
Some of it costs as high as three dollars a package — 
that’s the kind Reinette must have. You ought to have 
some, too. It would improve that spot where the dust 
of the Hethertons has settled under your nose. There 
— don’t rub it with your hands ; you make it worse than 
ever. We must hunt round for some water to wash 
your face before we go back to town. But let’s furnish 
this room with matting, which we quite forgot, and a 
willow chair in the bay-window, and a work-table, and 
another chair close by, with the cat and kittens. That 
will make the picture complete, and if she is not satis- 
fied, why, then she’s hard to suit. I’ll make this room 
my special charge ; you needn’t bother about it at all. 
I was going right down to the Vineyard, but shall wait 
to geeet my cousin. And now, come on, and let’s inves- 
tigate the rest of the old hut, while there is daylight to 
do it in.” 

Mr. Beresford was not at all loth to leave the close 


THE INVESTIGATION. 


35 


room which smelled so musty and damp, but which 
really seemed in a better state of preservation than 
other parts of the house. Everything had gone to decay, 
and but for Phil he would have been utterly discouraged, 
and abandoned all attempts to restore the place to any- 
thing like a habitable condition. Phil was all enthu- 
siasm, and knew exactly what ought to be done, and in 
his zeal offered to see to nearly everything, provided his 
friend did not limit him as to means. This Mr. Beres- 
ford promised not to do. Money should be forthcoming 
even if a hundred workmen were employed, as Phil 
seemed to think there must be, the time was so short, 
and they would like to have things decent at least for 
Miss Reinette, of whom they talked and speculated as 
they rode back to town. Was she pretty, they wondered, 
and the decision was, that as all )"oung girls have a 
certain amount of prettiness, she probably was not an 
exception ; yes, she was pretty, unquestionably, and 
Frenchy, and spoiled, and a blonde, Phil said, for no 
one with a drop of Ferguson blood in his veins was ever 
anything but that, and the young man spoke impatiently, 
for he was thinking of his own lilies and roses, and fail 
hair w'hich he affected to hate. 

“ Of course she is petite^* Mr. Beresford said, but Phil 
did not agree with him. 

He was himself six feet ; his mother was tall , his 
cousin Anna was tall. All the Fergusons were tall, 
and the young men bet a soft hat on the subject of 
Reinettc's height. They were getting very much inte- 
rested in the young lady, nor was their interest at all 
diminished when, as they reached the village, they called 
at the post-office and found a letter from her, which, 
though sent by the same steamer with her father’s 
had not reached Merrivale until that evening. The 
handwriting was very small, but very plain and pretty ; 
the letter was very short and rin as follows : 


3 ^ 


THE INVESTIGATION, 


** Hotel Meurice, Paris, June — . 

; Mr. Arthur Beresford. — Dear Sir : I have just 
discovered that papa has told you among other thing% 
to have a little saddle pony in readiness for me. Now I 
will not have a pony. I detest a little horse as much as 
I do a little woman, and I must have a great tall horse, 
who will carry me grandly and high. The biggest and 
grandest you can find. 

“ Truly, Reinette Hetherton.” 

It almost seemed to the young men that they held 
the unknown Reinette by the hand, so near did this 
letter bring her to them, and such insight into her 
character did it give them. 

“ She has a mind of her own and means to exercise 
it,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil, intent upon the soft 
hat, said : 

“You will lose your bet, old fellow. Nobody but 
an Amazon would insist upon a great tall horse. It is 
just as I told you. She is five feet eleven at least. I 
want a nice hat, and if you don’t object, I’ll pick it out 
IT /self, and send you the bill.” 

“ I was just thinking of doing the same by you, for 
only a wee little creature would want a tall horse to 
carry her grandly and high,” said Mr. Beresford, still 
studying the gilt-edged sheet of note paper, where there 
lingered a faint delicate perfume which miles of travel 
by land and sea had not quite destroyed. 

“ Ah bien^ nous verrons” said Phil : then, bidding good- 
night to his friend, he walked away humming softly an 
old French song, of which Mr. Beresford caught the 
words, Afa petite reine.** 

“ Confound the boy,” he said to himself. He’s 
better up in French than I am, and that will never do.” 

Arrived at his rooms, Arthur Beresford’s first act 
after putting Reinette’s letter carefully away, was to 
hunt up his long-neglected Ollendorf, over which he 
pondered for two hours or more, with only this result, 


PHI vs GRANDMOTHER, 


3 ? 


that his head was full of ail sorts of useless and non- 
sensical phrases, and that even in his dreams he kept 
repeating over and over again, ^'’Avez vous mon chapeau t 
Ouiy monsieur yje VaiT 


CHAPTER V. 

PHIL INTERVIEWS HIS GRANDMCTHEE. 

FTER leaving Mr. Beresford Phil concluded, 
before going home, to call on his grand- 
mother and ask if she had ever heard of a 
granddaughter in France. The house of 
grandma Ferguson, as she was now univer- 
sally called, was the same low, old-fashioned brown 
building under the poplar trees where she had sold gin- 
gerbread and beer in the days when Paul Rossiter and 
Fred Hetherton came wooing her two daughters, Mary 
and Margaret. In her youth grandmd, Ferguson had 
been a tall, slender, well-formed girl, with a face which 
always won a second glance from every one who saw it. 
In fact, it was her pretty face which attracted honest 
John Ferguson when he was looking for some one to be 
a mother to his little girl. Margaret Martin was her 
real name, but everybody called her Peggy, and every- 
body liked her, she was so thoroughly kind-hearted and 
good-natured, and ready to sacrifice herself in every and 
any cause. But her family was against her. Her father 
was coarse and low, and a drunkard, and her brothers 
were coarser and lower still, and the most notorious 
fighters in town, w’hile her mother was a shiftless, 
gossipy, jealous woman, who would rather receive 
charity at any time than work, and who always grum- 
bled at the charity when given But against Peggy’s 



38 


PHIL INTERVIEWS 


reputation not a whisper had ever been breathed. She 
was loud-talking, boisterous, and ignorant, and a Mar- 
gin but perfectly honest, straightforward^ and trusty, 
and from the day John Ferguson, the thrifty stone- 
iuasoa took her to his home to look after his house 
n,nd child her fortune was made, for in less than 
six months she became his wife. As Mrs. John Fer- 
guson she was somewhat different from Peggy Martin, 
and tried, not without success, to lower her voice and 
so ten her manners; but her frightful grammar re- 
mained unchanged, and her slang was noted for its 
originality and force. But she was a good mother, and 
wife, and neighbor, and after her father and mother died, 
and her fighting brothers emigrated to California, she 
shook the Martin dust from her skirts and mounted 
several rounds higher on the ladder of respectability. 
But she did not get into society until some years after 
the Rossiters were established in the great house on the 
Knoll. Her faithful John was under the sod, and the 
beer sign gone from the window of the low brown house 
where she lived in comfort and ease, v/ith a colored 
servant Axie, who was very serviceable to her indulgent 
mistress, making her bread, and pies, and caps, and 
frequently correcting her grammar, for Axie knew more 
of books than Mrs. Peggy. 

To Mrs. Rossiter Grandma Ferguson was a care and 
sometimes a trouble : to the young ladies, Ethel and 
Cjlrace, she was an annoyance and a mortification, both 
fjom her manners and her showy style of dress, while to 
Phil, who did not care in the least how she talked or 
how she dressed, she was a source of amusehient, and he 
frequently spent hours in her neat, quiet sitting-room, 
or out on the shaded back porch where he found her on 
the evening of his return from Hetherton Place. With 
increasing years Grandma Ferguson had lost the slight, 
willowy figure of her girlhood, and had reached a size 
when she refused to be weighed. So saucy Phil set her 


iris GRANDMOTHER. 


39 


down at two hundred and fitty, and laughed a: her form, 
which he said he could not encircle with both his long 
arms. All delicacy of feature and complexi3n had 
departed, and with her round red face and three chins 
she might well have passed for some fat old English cr 
German dowager, especially when attired in her royal 
purple moire antique, which she always called her morey 
with a long heavy gold chain around her neck, and her 
best lace cap with mountains of pink bows upon it. 
Mrs. Ferguson was fond of dress, and as purple and 
pink were her favorite colors, she sometimes presented 
a rather grotesque appearance. But on the night when 
Phil sought her, she had laid aside all superfluities and 
her silvery hair shone smooth and glossy in the soft 
moonlight, while her plain calico wrapper looked cool 
and comfortable and partially concealed her rotund 
form. 

“ For the massy’s sake,” she said, as Phil’s tall figure 
bent under the door-way and came swiftly to her side, 
“ what brung you here so late, and why hain’t you come 
afore? I was round to your Aunt Lyddy Ann’s this 
afternoon, and she told me you was to home, so I made 
a strawb’ry short-cake for tea, hopin’ you’d happen in, 
There’s a piece cold in the buttry now if you want it.” 

Phil declined the short-cake, and sitting down by his 
grandmother told her of Mr. Hetherton’s letter, and 
asked if she had ever heard of a daughtei. 

Mrs. Ferguson was a good deal startled and sur- 
prised, or, as she expressed it afterward to Reinette 
herself, “she. was that beat that a feller might have 
knocked her dbwm with a straw.” That there was some- 
where in the world a child of her beautiful young 
daughter who died so far away, was a great shock to 
her, and, for an instant, she stared blankly at Phil, as if 
not quite comprehending him. Then she began : 

“Fred Hetherton coming back after so many years, 
and brxngin' a darter with him ! My Maggie's girl ! 


40 


PHIL INTER VIE WS 


That’s very strange, and makes me think of what your 
gran’ther said afore he died. Seems as if he had second 
sight or somethin’, which ain’t to be wondered at when 
you remember that he was born with a vail over his 
face, and could alius tell things. He said that, in some 
way, Maggie would come back to me, and she is cornin’: 
but it’s queer I never hearn of a baby when Maggie died. 
Still, it’s like that sneak of a Fred Hetherton to keep it 
from us. We wasn’t good enough to know there was a 
child. But, thank the Lord, there’s as much Ferguson 
in her as Hetherton, and he can’t help that. I never 
could abide him, even when he came skulkin’ aftei 
Maggie, and whistlin’ for her to come out. At fust I 
was afraid he didn’t mean fair with her, and I told him 
if he harmed a hair of her head I’d shoot him as I would 
a dog. There’s fight, you know, in the Martins !” 

And the old lady’s eyes blazed with all the fire of 
her two scape-grace brothers, once the prize-fighters of 
the country. 

“ What were the particulars of the marriage and her 
death ? I’ve heard, of course, but did not pay much 
attention, as I knew nothing of Reinette,” said Phil ; and 
Mrs. Ferguson replied : 

“ ’Twas a runaway match, for old Mr. Hetherton 
rode such a high boss that Fred was most afraid of his 
life, and so they run away — the more fools they — and he 
took her to Europe, and that’s the last I ever seen of her, 
or hearn of her either, as you may say. It’s true she 
writ sometimes, but her letters was short, and not satis- ^ 
fyin’ at all — seemed as if she was afraid to tell us she 
vras lonesome for us at home, or wanted to see us. She 
had a new blue silk gown, and cassimere shawl, and 
string of pearls, and a waitin’-maid, and she said a good 
deal about them, but nothin’ of Fred, after a spell, 
whether he was kind or not. He never writ, nor took 
no more notice of us than if we was dogs, till there came 
a letter from him sayin’ she had died sudder ly at Rome, 


JUS GRANDMOTHEJR. 


41 


and was buried in the Protestant grave-yard. He was 
in Switzerland then, I believe, skylarkin’ round, for he 
w^as alw'ays a great rambler, and we didn’t know jestly 
where to direct letters ; but your mother writ and 
writ to the old place in Paris, and never got no 
answer, and at last she gin it up. When old man 
Hetherton died, Fred had to write about business, but 
never a word to us.” 

“ It’s very singular he did not tell you about the little 
girl,” suggested Phil ; and Mrs. Ferguson replied : 

“ No ’tain’t. He wouldn’t of let us know if there 
had been a hundred babies. He’d be more likely to keep 
whist, for fear we’d lay some claim to her, and we as 
good as he any day, if he wasn’t quite so rich. Why, 
tiiere never was a likelier gal than your mother, even 
when she closed boots for a livin’; and there ain’t a 
grander lady now in the land than she is.” 

” I don’t know about the grand,” said Phil, “but I 
know there is not a better woman in the world than my 
mother, or a handsomer either, w^hen she’s dressed in her 
velvet, and laces, and diamonds. I wish you could see 
her once.” 

“ I wish to gracious I could,” returned Mrs. Fergu- 
son. “ Why don’t she never put on her best clothes here 
and let us see ’em once, and not alius wear them plain 
black silks, and browns, and grays 

“ Merrivale is hardly the place for velvets and dia- 
monds,” said Phil. “ There is seldom any occasion for 
them, and mother does not think it good taste to make a 
display.” 

“No, I s’pose not,” grandma replied; “but mabby 
Rennet will take me with her to Washington, or Sara- 
toga, or the sea-side, and then I can see it all. And they 
needn’t be ashamed of me nuther. There’s my purple 
morgy, and upon a pinch I can have another new silk. 
Rennet will find her granny has clothes !” 

Phil did not usually wince at anything his grand- 


42 


PHIL INTERVIEWS 


mother said, but now a cold sweat broke out al* over 
him as he thought of her at the sea-side arrayed in her 
purple 77iorey^ which made her look fatter and coarser 
than ever, with the bright pink ribbons or blue feather 
in her cap. What would Reinette say to such a figure, 
and what would Reinette think of her any way ? He 
was accustomed to her ; he knew all the good there was 
in her ; but Reinette, with her French ideas, was differ- 
ent, and he found himself seeing with Reinette’s eyes 
and hearing with Reinette’s ears, and blushing with 
shame for the good old lady, who went on talking about 
her new granddaughter, whom the sometimes called 
Rennety and sometimes RuTinet^ but never by her right 
name. 

At last Phil could bear it no longer, and said : 

“ Grandma, isn’t it just as easy to say Reinette as 
Rennet ? Do you know Vv’hat a rennet is ?” 

“ No, what is it ?” she asked, and he replied : 

“ It is what farmers put in milk to make cheese 
curd.” 

“ Bless the boy !” and Mrs. Ferguson laughed till the 
tears rolled down her fat cheeks. “ Bless the boy, that’s 
ru7met ; as if I didn’t know run7iet — I, that lived with a 
farmer three summers, and made cheese every day.” 

“ No matter ; it is spelled rcTiTiet^ and I do not believe 
my cousin would care to be called that. We want to 
please her, you know,” said Phil, and his grandmother 
replied : 

“ To be sure we do, and we must make quite a time 
when she fust lands here. Your mother and the gals 
will come home, of course.” 

“ Perhaps so. I shall write them about it,” said Phil, 
and his grandmother continued : ‘‘We must get up a 
percession to meet her, in your father’s carriage, and a 
hired hack, and our best clothes. I’ll see Lyddy Ann 
to-morrow about fix in’ me somethin’ to wear. Now 1 


43 


ms GRANDMOTHER, 

think on’t, Lyddy Ann talks of sailin’ out her business 
— so she told me this afternoon. Did you know it ?” 

“ I knew some one had written her on the subject, 
but not that she had decided to sell,” was Phil’s reply, 
and his grandmother said : 

“ She hain’t, exactly ; but Anny’s puttin’ her up co 
it, thinkin’ she’ll be thought more on if her mother is 
not a dressmaker, and that sign is out of the winder. 
Silly critter ! She gets that from the Rices, and they 
was nothin’ extra — I know ’em root and branch. I tell 
you I’m as much thought on as if I hadn’t sold ginger- 
bread and beer ; but Anny says I’m only noticed on 
account of the Rossiters — that folks dassent slight Miss 
Rossiter’s mother, and mabby that’s so.” 

How dreadful her conversation was to Phil, who 
wondered if she had always talked in this way, and if 
nothing could be done to tone her down a little before 
Reinette came. Nothing, he finally decided, and then 
proceeded to tell her what changes Mr. Beresford con- 
templated making at Hetherton Place, and what Mr. 
Hetherton had written of his daughter’s tastes with 
reference to cats, and asked if she could help him there. 

“That’s the Martin blood in her,” said Mrs. Fergu- 
son. “ We are desput fond of cats, but I can’t let her 
have old Blue, who has lived with me this ten years, 
but there’s Speckle, with three as lovely Malta kittens as 
you ever see. They torment me most to death killin’ 
chickens and tearing up the flower-beds. Rennet can have 
them and welcome.” 

It was Rennet again, and Phil let it pass, feeiing that to 
change an old lady like his grandmother was as impos- 
sible as to change <he order of the seasons, and hoping 
his cousin would have sense enough to overlook the 
grammar, and the slang, and prize her for the genuine 
good there was in her. As it was now getting very late 
Phil at last said good-night and walked toward home 


44 


GETTING READ Y 


thinking constantly of Reinette, wondering how he should 
like her, and wondering more how she would like him. 


CHAPTER VI. 

GETTING READY FOR REINETTE. 

ITHIN two days it was known all over Mer 
rivale that Frederick Hetherton was coming 
home and was to bring with him a daughter 
of whose existence no one in town had ever 
heard, and within three days thirty workmen were busy at 
Hetherton Place trying to restore the house and grounds 
to something like their former appearance. Nominally 
Mr. Beresford was the superintendent, but Phil was 
really the head, the one who thought of everything and 
saw to everything, and to whom every one finally went 
for advice. He had written to his mother and sisters 
telling them of the expected arrival, and asking if they 
would not come home for a few days to receive Reinette, 
who would naturally feel more at her ease with them 
than with the Fergusons. 

To this letter his sister Ethel replied, expressing her 
astonishment that there should be a cousin of whom she 
had never heard, and saying they should be very glad to 
be in Merrivale to receive her, but that her mother was 
suffering from a sudden and acute attack of muscular 
rheumatism, and required the constant care both of her- 
self and her sister Grace, so it would be impossible for 
them to leave her. 

“ Mother is very anxious to have father here ; because 
she thinks he can lift her better than any one else,” Ethel 
wrote in conclusion, “ but she says perhaps he ought to 
f- 



FOR REINETTE. 


45 

stay and welcome Miss Hetherton ; he must do as he 
thinks best." 

This letter Phil showed to his father, of course, and 
as Col. Rossiter was not particularly interested, either 
in Frederick Hetherton or his daughter, and as it was 
very obnoxious to have Grandma Ferguson coming to 
him every day as she did to discuss the percession which 
ought to go up to meet the strangers, he started at once 
for the sea-side, and as Mr. Beresford was confined to the 
house with a severe influenza and sore throat Phil was 
left to stem the tide alone. But he was equal the emer- 
gency and enjoyed it immensely. Every day was spent 
at Hetherton Place, except on the occasions when he made 
journeys to Springfield or Worcester in quest of articles 
which could not be found in Merrivale. It was aston- 
ishing to Mr. Beresford, to whom daily reports were 
made, how much Phil knew about the furnishing of a 
house. Nothing was forgotten from a box of starch and 
pepper up to blankets, and spreads, and easy-chairs. Phil 
seemed to be everywhere at the same time, and by his 
own enthusiasm spurred on the men to do double the 
work they would otherwise have done. He superi ntended 
everything in the grounds, in the garden, and in the 
house, where, he frequently worked with his own hands. 
He cut the paper and the border for Reinette’s bed- 
chamber, put down the matting himself, looped the mus- 
lin curtains with knots of blue ribbon, and from his own 
room at the Knoll brought a few choice pictures to hang 
upon the walls. He asked no advice of any one, and was 
deaf to all the hints his cousin Anna gave him with 
regard to what she thought was proper in the furnishing 
of a house. But when toward the last she insisted upon 
going to Hetherton Place, he consented and took her 
himself in his light open buggy. 

Anna was never happier than when seen by the villag- 
ers in company with Phil, or with any of the Rossiters of 
whose relationship to herself she was veiy proud, parad- 


46 


GETTING READY 


ing it always before strangers when she thought there 
was any likelihood of its working good for horself. Like 
her grandmother she thought a great deal of dress, and 
on this occasion she was very dashingly arrayed with 
streamers on her hat nearly a yard long, her dress tied 
back so tight that she could scarcely walk, her fan 
swinging from her side, a black lace scarf which came 
almost to her feet, and a white silk parasol which her 
mother had bought in Boston at an enormous price. 
Anna was very much in love with her parasol, and vciy 
angry with Phil for telling her it was more suitable for 
the city than for the country. She liked city things, she 
3aid, and if the Merrivale people were so far behind the 
times as not to tolerate a white silk parasol she meant to 
educate them. So she flaunted her parasol on all occa- 
sions and held it airily over her head as she rode to 
Hetherton Place with Phil, and was very soft, and gentle 
and talkative, and told him of a schoolmate of hers who 
had just been married, and made a splendid match, only 
some might object to it, as the parties were own cousins^ 
not half, but own'i For her part she saw nothing out of 
the way if they were suited. Did Phil think it wrong 
for cousins to marry each other ? 

Y es, Phil thought it decidedly wicked, and he urged 
his pony into a pace which drowned the rest of Miss 
Anna’s remarks on the subject of cousins marrying. 

Arrived at Hetherton Place, the young lady criticised 
things generally with an unsparing tongue. Everything 
was so simple and plain, especially in Reinette’s room. 
Of course it was pleasant, and neat, and cool, and airy, 
but why did Phil get matting for the floor, and that light, 
cheap-looking furniture. There was a lovely pattern of 
Brussels carpeting at Enfair’s for a dollar fifty a yard, 
and a high black walnut bedstead and dressing bureau 
at TrurabuU’s ; and why didn’t he get a wardrobe with a 
looking-glass door, so Reinette could see the bottom of 
her dresses. Then she inspected the pictures, and asked 


FOIi REINETTE. 


47 


where he found those dark-looking' photographs, and 
that woman in the clouds with her eyes rolled up, and 
so many children around her. Why didn’t he get those 
lovely pictures, “ Wide Awake ” and “ Fast Asleep ?” 
They would brighten up the room so much ! 

Phil bit his lips, but maintained a very grave face 
while he explained to the young lady that what she called 
photographs were fine steel engravings, which he found 
in Frankfort, one a landscape after Claude Lorraine, 
and the other a moonlight scene on the Rhine, near 
Bingen, with the Mouse Tower and Ehreufels in sight, 
while the woman with her eyes rolled up was an oil copy 
of Murillo’s great picture, the gem of the Louvre. 

Anna Ferguson had been to boarding-school two or 
three quarters, and had botanies, and physiologies, and 
algebras laid away on the book-shelf at home ; but for 
all that she was a very ignorant young lady, and guilt- 
less of any knowledge of the Louvre or Murillo and 
Claude Lorraine. But she liked to appear learned, and 
had a way of pretending to known many things which 
she did not know ; and now she hastened to cover her 
mistake by pretending to examine the pictures more 
closely, and saying, “ Oh, yes, I see ; lovely, aren’t they ? 
and so well done ! Why, Mr. Beresford, you here !” and 
she turned suddenly toward the door, which Arthur 
Beresford was just entering. 

He was much better, and had ridden over to Hether- 
ton Place with a friend who was going a few miles fa 
ther, and, hearing voices up stairs, had come at once to 
Reinette’s room, where he found Phil and Anna. 

Just then a workman called Phil away, and Mr. Be- 
resford was left alone with Anna, who was even bctier 
pleased to be with him than with her cousin, and who 
assumed her prettiest, most cuquettish manners in order 
to attract the grave lawyer, whose cue she at once fcl~ 
lowed, praising the arrangement of the room generally, 
and finally calling his attention to the pictures, one of 


48 


GETTING READY 


which, she said, was drawn by Mr. Lorraine, and the 
other by — she could not quite remember whom, but — 
the oil painting was the portrait of Murillo, whose hands 
and hair she thought so lovely. That came from Loo^ 
in France, but the engravings were from somewhere in 
Kentucky — Frankfort, she believed. 

Mr. Beresford was disgusted, as he always was with 
Anna, but did not try to enlighten her, and, as Phil soon 
joined them, they went over the rest of the house to- 
gether. Only the upper and lower halls, the dining- 
room, the library, Mr. Hetherton’s and Reinette’s bed- 
chambers, the kitchen and servants’ rooms had been reno- 
vated, and these were all in comfortable living order, 
with new matting on the floors, fresh paint and white- 
wash everywhere, and furniture enough to make it seem 
homelike and cozy. But it was in the grounds that the 
most wonderful change had been wrought, and Mr. Be- 
resford could scarcely credit the evidence of his eyes 
when he saw what had been done. Weeds and obnox- 
ious plants dug up by the roots j gravel walks cleaned 
and raked ; quantities of fresh green sod where the grass 
had been almost dead ; masses of potted flowers here and 
there upon the lawn and in the flower-garden ; while the 
conservatory, which opened from the dining-room, was 
partly filled with rare exotics which Phil had ordered 
from Springfield. 

In its palmy days Hetherton had been one of the finest 
places in the country, and, with some of its beauty re- 
stored, it looked very pleasant and inviting that summer 
afternoon ; and Anna felt a pang of envy of her more 
fortunate cousin, for whom all these preparations were 
made, and of whom Phil talked so much. Anna was 
beginning to be jealous of Reinette, and, as she rode 
home with Phil, she asked him if he supposed he would 
make as much fuss for her if she were coming to 
Merrivale. 


FOR REINETTE. 


49 


Why, yes," he answered her, under the same cir- 
cumstances I should, of course." 

“ Yes, that’s just the point," she retorted. “ Under the 
same circumstances, which means if 1 were rich like her, 
and belonged to the Hethertons. I tell you what, Phil, 
* Money makes the mare go,' and though this girl is not 
one whit better than I am, whose mother is a dress- 
maker and whose father keeps a one-horse grocery, you 
and that stuck-up Beresford, whom I hate because he is 
stuck-up, would run your legs off for her, when 37^ou, or 
at least he, would hardly notice me. You have to, be- 
cause you are my cousin, but if you were not you would 
be just as bad as Beresford. Wouldn’t you now ?" 

Phil did not care to argue with his cousin, whose 
jealous nature he understood perfectly, so he merely 
laughed at her fancies and tried to divert her mind by 
asking her where she thought he could find a blue silk 
spread to lay on the foot of the bed in Reinette’s cham- 
ber. 

Anna did not know, but promised to make it her busi- 
ness to inquire, and also to see that some pots of ivies 
were sent to Hetherton Place before the guests arrived. 

The ruse had succeeded, and Miss Anna, who felt that 
she was deferred to, w’as in a much better frame of mind 
when she was at last set down at her mother’s door. 
She found her grandmother in the sitting-room, and at 
once recounted to her all she had seen at Hetherton 
Place, and how she was to send over some ivies and 
hunt up a blue silk quilt for Reinette’s bed. 

“ A blue silk bed-quilt this swelterin’ weather? What 
under the sun does she want of that ? ’’ grandma asked, 
and Anna explained that Cousin Ethel had a pink silk 
quilt because her room was pink, and Cousin Grace had 
blue because her room was blue. It was a fashion, that 
was all. 

Fiddlesticks on the fashion ! ’’ her grandmother re- 
plied. “ Better save the money for something else. If 
3 


GETTING READY 


5 *^ 

Rennet must have an extra comforter, there’s that patch- 
't'ork quilt, herrin’-bone pattern, which her mother 
pieced when she was ten years old. It took the prize at the 
cattle show, and I’ve kep’ it ever sense as a sort of memoir. 
If Rennet is any kind of a girl she’ll think a sight on’t be- 
cause it was her mother’s work. I shall send it over 
with the cat and kittens.” 

“ Cat and kittens ! What do you mean ? ” Anna asked, 
in unfeigned surprise, and her grandmother explained 
that Rennet’s father had written she was very fond of 
cats, and Phil wanted some for her, and she was going 
to give her Speckle and the Maltas. 

Anna, who was above such weaknesses as a love for 
cats, sniffed contemptuously, and thought her cousin 
must be a very silly, childish person ; “ but then 
grandma,” she added, “you may as well call her by her 
right name, which ins’t Rennet, but Reinette^ with the ac- 
cent on the last syllable.” 

“ Oh, yes, I forgot,” said grandma. “ Phil told me not 
to call her Rennet, but what’s the difference ? I mean to 
do my duty by her, and show Fred Fletnciion that I 
know what is what. We must all go up in percession 
to meet ’em, and, then, go with ’em to the house, and 
your mother is goin’ to fix me a new cap in case we 
stay to tea, and if it ain’t too hot I shall wear my mony^ 
and if it is, I guess I’ll wear that pinkish sprigged mus- 
lin with my lammy shawl, and you, Anny, must wear 
your best clothes, for we don’t want ’em to think we are 
back-woodsy." 

There was no danger of Anna’s wearing anything but 
her best clothes, and for the next three days she busied 
herself with thinking what was most becoming to her, 
deciding at last upon white muslin and a blue sash, with 
her long lace scarf fastened with a blush-rose, her white 
chip hat faced with blue and turned up on one side, 
with a cream-colored feather drooping down the back* 


FOR REINETTE, 


5 * 


This she thought would be altogether aw /a/V, and sure to 
impress Reinette with the fact that she was somebody. 

Anna was getting ouite interested in her new cousin, 
with whom she meant to ctand well; and though she said 
the contrary, she was really glad that Ethel and Grace 
Rossiter were both absent, thus leaving her to represent 
alone the young-ladyhood of the family. 

Such was the state of affairs on the morning when 
the paper announced that the Russia had reached New 
York the previous afternoon — a piece of news which, 
though expected, threw Mr. Beresford, and Phil, and 
the Fergusons into a state of great excitement. 

Fortunately, however, everything at Hetherton Place 
was in readiness for the strangers. The rooms were all 
in perfect order ; a responsible and respectable woman 
in the person of a Mrs. Jerry, had been found for house- 
keeper, and with her daughter Sarah installed in the 
kitchen. Two beautiful horses, with a carriage to match, 
were standing in the stable, awaiting the approval of 
Miss Reinette ; while in another stall a milk-white steed, 
tall and large, was pawing and champing, as if impatient 
for the coming of the mistress he was to carry so grandly 
and high. Chained in his kennel to keep him from run- 
ning away to the home he had not yet forgotten, was a 
noble Newfoundland dog, which Phil had bought at a 
great price in West Merrivale, and whose name was 
King. Could Phil have had his way, he would have 
bought a litter of puppies, too, for the young lady ; but 
Mr. Beresford interfered, insisting that one dog like 
King was enough to satisfy any reasonable woman. If 
Miss Hetherton wanted puppies, let her get them herself. 
So Phil gave them up, but brought over Speckle and 
the three Maltas, and these were tolerably well domesti- 
cated, and had taken very kindly to the stuffed easy-chair 
which stood in Reinette’s window. The blue silk quilt 
had been found in Worcester, and Grandma Ferguson 
had sent over the herrin’-bene” which Margaret pieced 


52 GETTING READY FOR REINETTE. 


when ten years old, and which had taken the prize at the 
“ Cattle show.” This Mrs. Jerry had promised faithfully 
to put on Rennet's bed, and to call the young lady’s 
attention to it as her mother’s handiwork. 

And so all things were ready, and Grandma Fer- 
guson’s sprigged muslin, and lammy shawl, and new lace 
cap were laid out upon the bed when Phil came with the 
news that the ship had arrived, and that in all proba- 
bility, they should soon get a telegram from Mr. Hether- 
ton himself. 

This was early in the morning, and as the hours crept 
on, Mr. Beresford and Phil hovered about the telegraph 
office, until at last the message came flashing along the 
w'ires, and the operator wrote it down, and, with a white, 
scared face, handed it to Mr. Beresford, who, with a 
whiter face and a look of horror in his eyes, read the 
following : 

*‘New York, July — , i8 — . 

To Mr. Arthur Beresford : 

“Papa is dead. He died just before the ship touched 
the shore, and I am all alone with Pierre. But every body 
is so kind, and everything has been done, and we take 
the ten o’clock train for Merrivale, Pierre and I and 
poor dead papa. Please meet us at the station, and don’t 
take papa to his old home. I could not bear to have him 
there dead. I should see him always and hate the place 
forever ; so bury him at oace. Pierre says that will be 
better. I trust everything to you. 

“ Reinette Hetuerton.’ 


ON THE SEA, 


53 


CHAPTER VII. 


ON THE SEA. 



HE Russia was steaming slowly up the harbor 
to her moorings on the Jersey side of the 
Hudson, and her upper deck was crowded 
with passengers, some straining their eyes to 
catch the first sight of familiar forms among the crowd 
waiting for them on shore, and others to whom every 
thing was strange, looking eagerly from side to side at 
the world so new to them. Standing apart from the 
rest, with her hands locked tightly together, her head 
thrown back, and a long blue vail twisted around her 
sailor hat, was a young girl with a figure so slight that 
at first you might have mistaken her for a child of four- 
teen, but when she turned more fully toward you, you 
would have seen that she was a girl of twenty summers 
or more, whose face you would look at once, and twice, 
and then come back to study it again and wonder what 
there was in it to fascinate and charm you so. Beautiful 
in the strict sense of the word it was not, for if you 
dissected the features one by one there was much to find 
fault with. The forehead was low, the nose was short 
and inclined to an upward turn, as was the upper iip, 
and the complexion was dark, while the cheeks had lost 
something of their roundness during the passage, which, 
though made in summer, had not been altogether smooth 
and free from storm. 

During the first three days Reinette had been very 
sick, and Pierre, her father’s attendant, had carried her 
on deck, and wrapped her in blankets and furs, and 
watched over and cared for her as if she had been a 
queen. Then, when the rain came dashing down and 
the great green waves broke over the lower deck, and 


54 


ON THE SEA, 


she refused to return to the close cabin and said she 
liked to watch the ocean in a fury, because it made her 
think of herself in some of her moods, he staid by her 
and covered her with his own rubber cloak and held an 
umbrella over her head until the wind took it from him 
and turning it wrong side out, carried it far out to sea, 
where it rode like a feather on the waves, while Reinette 
laughed merrily to see it dance up and down until it was 
lost to sight. Others than Pierre were interested in and 
kind to the little French girl, whose father bad kept his 
berth from the time he came on hoard at Liverpool. 

It was whispered about that he was a millionaire, and 
that Reinette was his only child, and heiress of his vast 
fortune ; and as such things go for a great deal on ship- 
board as well as elsewere, this of itself was sufficient to 
interest the passengers in Reinette, who, as soon as she 
was able, danced about the ship like the merry, light- 
hearted creature she was, now jabbering with Pierre in 
his native tongue, and sometimes holding fierce alterca- 
tions with him, now watching the sailors at their work, 
and not unfrequently joining her own clear, bird-like 
voice in the songs they sung, and again amusing some 
fretful, restless child, whose tired mother blessed her for 
the respite, and thought her the sweetest type of girlhood 
she had ever seen. Everybody liked her, and, after a 
little, everybody called her beautiful, she was so bright 
and sparkling, with the rich, warm color in her cheeks, 
her pretty little mouth always breaking out in exclam- 
ations of surprise or bursts of laughter, her long eye- 
lashes and heavy brows, her black, wavy hair, which 
in some lights had in it a tinge of golden brown, 
as if it had been often kissed by the warm suns of 
Southern France, and, more than all, her large, dark, 
brilliant eyes which flashed upon you so suddenly and so 
swiftly as almost to blind and bewilder you with their 
brightness. Taken as a whole, Reinette Hetherton was 
3 girl, who, once seen, could rever be forgotten ; she 


ON THE SEA. 


55 


was so sunny, and sweet, and willful, and piquant, and 
charming every way ; and the passengers on the Russia, 
W'ho were mostly middle-aged people, petted, and ad- 
mired, and sympathized with her, too, when, with the 
trace of tears in her beautiful eyes, she came from her 
fatlier’s bedside and reported him no better. 

For months his health had been failing, and he had 
hoped the sea voyage would restore him somewhat ; but 
he was growing steadily worse, though as yet there was 
no shadow of fear in Reinette’s heart ; she was only sad 
and sorry for him, and staid with him whenever he 
would let her. Generally, however, he would send her 
away after a few passionate hugs and kisses, and in- 
quiries as to how he was feeling. She must get all the 
sea air she could, he said, for he wanted her to be bright 
and fresh when he presented her to his friends in 
America. 

“ Not that I have many friends there,” he said, smil- 
ing a little bitterly. “ It has been so many years, and so 
much has happened, since I left home, that I doubt if any 
remember or care for me ; but they will forgive me, 
perhaps, for the sake of you, my daughter,” and he 
stroked fondly the long silken curls which Reinettewore 
bound at the back of her head, and looked lovingly into 
the eyes meeting his so tenderly. 

Then he sent her away, and turning in his narrow 
berth, thought again, as he had thought many times, of 
all the sin and evil-doing he had heaped up against him- 
ielf and others since the day he last saw his native land. 
Many and terribly bitter were the thoughts crowding his 
brain and filling him with remorse, as he lay there day 
after day, and knew that with each turn of the noisy 
screw he was nearing the home where there was not a 
friend to welcome him. 

“ But once there,” he said to himself, “ once back in 
the old place, I’ll begin life anew. I’ll make friends 
even of my enemies for the sake of my darling ; phy 


ON THE SEA. 


Queenie, my child, there is so much I wo.ild undo for 
you — for you — to whom the greatest wrong of all has 
been done, and you so unconscious of it. Would you 
kiss me as you do ? Would you love me as you do, if 
you knew ail the dark past as I know it ? Oh, my 
child ! my child !” and, covering his face with his hands, 
the sick man sobbed aloud. 

“ If I live to get there,’’ was now the burden of his 
thoughts ; but could he live he asked himself, as, day by 
day, he felt he was growing weaker, and counted tlie 
rapid heart-beats and saw the streaks of blood upon the 
napkin his faithful Pierre held to his lips after a par- 
oxysm of coughing. 

The desire for life was stronger within him now than 
it had been in years ; but the candle was burned 
out ; there was only the snuff remaining, and when at 
last the scent of the land breeze was borne through his 
open window, and Reinette came rushing in to tell him 
they were entering the harbor, and she had seen America, 
he knew the hand of death was on him, and that the only 
shore he should ever reach would be the boundless shore 
of eternity, which was looming up so black before him. 
But he would let Reinette be happy as long as possible, 
and so he sent her from him, and then with a low moan, 
he cried : 

“ Pity me, oh, God ! I have so much need to be 
forgiven.” 

In his gayest, most reckless moods, with his skeptical 
companions round him jeering at all that was sacred and 
holy, he had said there was no God, that the Bible was 
only an old woman’s fable, but he had never quite 
believed it, and now, with death measuring his life by 
heart-beats, he knew there was a God and a hereafter by 
the stings of his own conscience, and the first prayer 
uttered in years fell from his white lips. Oh, how many 
and how great were the sins which came back to him as 
he thought of his wasted life, remembering his muthei 


ON THE SEA. 


57 


dead so long ago ; his fathei, too, whose last words to 
him had been a curse ; and the beautiful Margaret, whom 
for a short period he had loved with a love so impetuous 
that in a few short months it had burned itself out and 
left only poisonous ashes where the fierce passion had 
been. How gentle, and patient, and forgiving she was, 
and how basely he had requited her faithfulness and 
love. 

“ Oh, Margaret,” he whispered, “I am so sorry, and 
if I could undo the past I would.” 

Then, as another phantom, darker, more terrible than 
all the others flitted before his mind, he shivered as with 
a chill, while the great drops of sweat came out upon his 
forehead, and the palms of his hands which he clasped 
so tightly together, were dripping with perspiration. 
And while he lay there alone sufferring the torments of 
remorse he could hear the rapid movements of the 
sailors and the excited crowd on deck watching for the 
shore. And Reinette, he knew was with them, looking 
eagerly upon the new world which recently he had tried 
to teach her to love as her future home. 

“Home — America,” he murmured; “I must see it 
again ! ” and, regardless of consequences, he got out of 
his berth, and, tottering to his window, looked out upon 
the beautiful bay, and saw in the distance the city, which 
had grown so much since he last looked upon it. 

But the exertion was too great for him, and, dizzy and 
faint, he crept back to his bed, where he lay unconscious 
for a moment : then rousing himself, and alarmed by the 
terrible feeling stealing over him so fast, he called aloud 
for Reinette 

The call was heard by Pierre, wtio was never far 
away, and who came at once, greatly alarmed by the 
pallor in his master’s face and the flecks of blood upon 
the lips and chin. 

To go for Reinette was the work of an instant, and 
like a frightened deer, she bounded down the stairway to 


5 » 


ON THE SEA. 


her father’s side, and in her impetuosity almost thrc^;» 
herself upon him. But he motioned her back, and 
whispered. 

“ Not so close ; you take my breath away. Pierre,” 
he added, faintly as his valet started for the physician, 
“don’t go for iiim ; it’s too late now. I am dying; 
nothing can help me, and I must not be disturbed. I 
must be alone with Queenie. Stand outside till I call.” 

The frightened Pierre obeyed, and then Reinette was 
alone with her dying father. She knew he was dying, 
hut the awful suddenness stunned her so completely 
that she could only gaze at him in a stupefied kind of 
way, as his eyes were fixed so earnestly upon her. 

“ Little Queenie,” he said, using th^ pet name he al- 
ways gave her, “kneel down beside me and hold my 
hands in yours while I tell you something I ought to 
have told you long ago.” 

She obeyed, and, covering his cold hands with 
kisses, whispered : 

“Yes, father, I am waiting.” 

But if he heard, he did not answer at once ; and when 
at last he spoke, it was with difficulty, and like one who 
labors for breath. His mind, too, seemed wandering, 
and he said : 

“ I can’t tell, but if it ever comes to you, promise you 
will forgive me. I have loved you so much, my darling 
oh, my darling, promise while I can hear you ! ” 

“Yes, father, I promise,” Reinette replied, knowing 
nothing to what she pledged herself, thinking nothing 
except of the white face on the pilow, where the sign of 
death was written. 

“ Queenie, are you here ? ” the voice said again, and 
she replied, “ Yes, father,” while he continued : “ I meant 
to have told you when we reached New York, but canno- 
now, I am too weak. It is too late, forever too late. Oh 
Queenie — oh, Margaret, forgive ! ” 

“ Is it of mother you wish "o tell me ?” Reinette asked. 


ON THE SEA, 


59 


bending forward eagerly, and fixing her great dark eyes 
upon him. 

“ Your mother, child — your mother. Yes — no — don’t 
speak that name aloud. We’ve left her way over there, 
or I thought we had. That’s why I was goinghome — t 

get away from it, and — if Queenie, where are you 

I can’t see you, child. You are surely here? You are 
listening ?” 

“ Yes, yes, father, I am here. I am listening,” and the 
girl’s rigid face and fixed, wide-open eyes showed how 
intently she was listening. 

“ Yes, child, that’s right ; listen so close that nobody 
else can hear. We are all alone ? ” 

“ Yes, father, all alone ; only Pierre is outside, and he 
understands English so little. What is it, father? What 
are you going to tell me ? ” 

There vras silence for a moment, while Mr. Hether- 
ton regarded his daughter fixedly, and with an expres- 
sion in his eyes which made her uneasy and half afraid 
of him. 

“ What is it ?” he said, at last. “ I don’t know ; it 
comes and goes, as she did. Ah ! now I have it : Quee- 
nie, remember how much I love you, and if you ever 
meet your mother, remember it was my fault, and do not 
blame her too much ” 

“ Oh, poor father ! his mind is wandering,” Reinette 
thought ; but she said to him, soothingly : “Mother is 
dead ; she died in Rome w^hen I was born.” 

Again the eyes regarded her wistfully as the dying 
man replied : 

“ Yes, I know ; but she’s here, or she was over there in 
the corner just now, laughing at my pain. Oh, Queenie ! 
do the torments of the lost begin before they die? I’m 
sorry — oh, I am so sorry ! It’s too late now — too late. 
I can’t think how it was, or tell you if I could.” 

He was quiet a moment, and seemed to be himself 


Co 


ON THE SEA, 


again, as his hands caressed the shining 'air of the head 
bowed down so near to him. 

“ Too late, Queenie. I ought to have told you before, 
but it’s my nature to put off ; and now when they claim 
you in Merrivale, accept it ; try to like everybody and 
be pleased with everything. America is very different 
from Fiance. Trust Mr. Beresford ; he is my friend. 
He comes of a good race. Tell him everything. Go 
to him for everything necessary, but don’t trouble any 
one when you can help yourself. Don’t cry before peo- 
ple ; it bothers and distresses them. Be a woman ; learn 
to care for yourself. Govern your temper ; nobody will 
bear with it as I have. Be patient with Pierre — and — 
and — Queenie, child, where are you ? It’s getting so 
dark. I can’t see you anywhere, nor feel you either. 
Have you left me, too ? and Margaret is gone now.” 

“No, no ; I’m here!” Reinette cried, in an agony of 
fear ; and her father continued : 

Remember, when it comes to you, as it may, that you 
promised to forgive.” 

“ Yes, father. I don’t know what you mean, but if I 
ever do. I’ll forgive everything — everything, and love 
you just the same, forever and ever,” Reinette said to 
him ; and the cold, clammy hands upon her head pressed 
harder in token that he had heard. But that was the 
only response for a moment, when he said again, and 
this time in a whisper, with heavy, labored breath ; 

“One thing more comes to my mind. There will be 
letters for me — some on business, and possibly soma 
others, and you must let no one see them if there is any 
thing in them the world ought not to know. Promise 
Queenie.” 

“ I promise,” Reinette said, frightened at the strange 
look in his face and his evident eagerness for her reply. 

“ God bless you, darling ! Keep your promise and 
never try to find — ” 

He did not say what or whom, but lay perfectly quiet 


ON THE SEA. 


6i 


while overhead on deck the trampling :f feet was moie 
hurried and noisy, and the ship gave a little lurch as if 
hitting against something which resisted its force and set 
it to rocking again. The motion threw Reinette back- 
ward and when she gathered herself up and turned 
toward the white face upon the pillow, she uttered a 
wild cry in French : 

“ Oh Pierre, Pierre, come quickly, father is dead !’* 
and tottering toward the door she fell heavily against 
the tall custom-house officer just entering the state-room. 

He had come on board to do his duty ; had seen tlie 
bustling little Frenchman speak hurriedly to the young 
girl on deck ; had seen her dart away, and fancied she 
cast a frightened look at him. When others came to de- 
clare the contents of their trunks she had not been with 
them. 

“ Secreting her goods and chattels, no doubt,” he 
thought, and made his way to the state-room, where he 
stood appalled in the awful presence of death. 

Reinette might have had the wealth of all Paris in 
her trunks and carried it safely off, for her boxes were 
not molested, and both passengers, ship’s crew, and offi- 
cers vied with each other in their care for and attention 
to this young girl, whose father lay dead in his berth, 
and who was all alone in a foreign country. Under- 
standing but little cf the language, and terrified half out 
of his wits at the sight of death, Pierre was almost worse 
than useless, and could do nothing but crouch at his 
mistress’ feet, and holding her hands in his, gaze into 
her face in dumb despair, as if asking what they were to 
do next. 

“ Children, both of them. We must take it in hand 
ourselves,” the captain sail to his mate, and he did take 
it in hand, and saw that Reinette was made comfortable 
at the Astor, and that the body was made eady for bur- 
ial. 


62 


ON THE SEA, 


When asked if she had friends or relatives expecting 
her, Reinette replied : 

“N®, papa was all I had. There’s only Pierre now, 
and Mr. Beresford, papa’s agent. I am to trust him with 
everything.” 

Later, when something was said to her of telegraph- 
ing to Mr. Beresford to come for her, she answered, 
promptly : 

“ No, that would make unnecessary trouble, and 
father said I was not to do that. Pierre and I can go 
alone. I have traveled a great deal, and when papa was 
sick in Germany and Pierre could not understand, I 
talked to the guards and the porters. I know what to 
do.” 

And on the pale face there was a resolute, self-re- 
liant look, which was in part born of this terrible shock 
and partly the habit of Reinette’s life. 

“ To-morrow morning I will telegraph,” she added. 
“You see us to the right train, ano I can do the rest, I 
can find the way. I have been studying it up.” 

And she showed him Appleton’s Railway Guide, to 
which she had fled as to a friend. 

Since leaving the ship she had not shed a tear in the 
presence of any one, but the anguish in her dry bright 
eyes, and the drawn, set look about her mouth told how 
nard it was for her to force back the wild cry which was 
constantly forcing itself to her lips. Her father, to 
whom in life her slightest wish had been a law had said 
to her, “Don’t trouble peoole, nor cry if you can help ii., 
Be a woman and now h.s wish was a law to her, whicii 
she would obey if she broke her heart in doing it. She 
did not seem at all like the airy, merry-hearted, laughing 
girl she had been on shipboard, but like a woman with a 
woman's will and a wonr.an’s capacity to act. That she 
could go to Merrivale alone she was perfectly sure, and 
she convinced the captain of it, and then with a voice 
which shook a little, she said : 


ON THE SEA. 


** Mr. Beresford will meet me, of course, at the station, 
and some others, perhaps. I don’t quite know the ways 
of this country. Will they bury him at once; do you 
think, or take him somewhere first ? ” 

The captain understood her meaning and replied by 
asking if she had friends — relatives — in Merrivale. 

“None,” she said. “Nobody but Mr. Beresford, 
father’s friend and lawyer.”^ 

“ But you have a house — a home — to which you are 
going ? ” 

“ Yes, the home where father lived when a boy, and 
which he was so anxious to see once more,” Reinette 
said, and the captain replied : 

“ Naturally, then, they will take your father there for 
a day or two, and then give him a grand funeral, 
with ” 

“ They won’t ; they sha’n’t,” interrupted Reinette, her 
eyes blazing with determination. “ I won’t have a grand 
funeral, with all the peasantry and their carts joining in 
it. Neither will I have him carried to the old home. I 
could not bear to see him there dead. I should hate the 
place always, and see him everywhere. He is my own 
darling father to do with as I like. Pierre says I’m my 
own mistress, and I shall telegraph Mr. Beresford to- 
morrow that father must be buried from the station, and 
I shall make him do it.” 

She was very decided and imperious, and the captain 
let her have her way, and sent off for her next morning 
the long telegram which she had written, regardless of 
expense, and which so startled the people in Merrivale 
and changed their plans so summarily. 


REJNETTE ARRIVES, 


»4 


CHAPTER VIIL 

REINETTE ARRIVES. 

R. BERESFORD, to whom the telegram was 
addressed, read it first, feeling as if the ground 
was moving from under his feet, and leaving 
a chasm he did not know how to span. 

“ What is it ? ” Phil asked, as he saw how white Mr. 
Beresford grew, and how the hand which held the tele- 
gram shook. 

“ Read for yourself, Mr. Beresford said, passing the 
paper to Phil, to whose eyes the hot tears sprang quickly, 
and whose heart went out to the desolate young girl, 
alone in a strange land, with her dead father beside 
her. 

“If I had known it last night I would have gone to 
her,” he said, “but it’s too late now for that. All we can 
do is to make it as easy for her as possible. Beresford, 
you see to the grave in the Hetherton lot, and that the 
hearse is at the station to meet the body, and I’ll notify 
them at the house not to go on with the big dinner they 
are getting up, and I’ll tell grandmother that her 
flounced muslin and pink ribbons will not be needed 
to-day.” 

Shocked and horrified as he was, Phil could not re- 
frain from a little pleasantry at the expense of the dress 
and cap which grandma Ferguson was intending to wear 
‘ to the doin’s,” as she termed it. That she should ac- 
company her son-in-law and granddaughter home to 
dinner she did not for a moment doubt, and her dress 
and cap and “ lammy ” s^awl were ready when Phil came 
with the news, which so shocked her that for a moment 
she did not speak, and when at last she found her voice 



REINETTE ARRIVES, 65 

tier first remark was wholly characteristic and like 
her. 

** Fred Hetherton dead ! Sarves him right, the stuck- 
up critter ! But I am sorry for the girl, and we 11 give 
him a big funeral jest on her account.” 

But Phil explained that Mr. Hetherton was to be 
buried from the station, as Reinette would not have the 
body taken to Hetherton Place. 

“ 'Fraid of sperrits, most likely,” said Mrs. Ferguson, 
thinking to herself that now she should spend a great 
deal of time with her granddaughter who would be 
lonely in her great house. 

Then, as her eye fell upon her muslin dress and lace 
cap, her thoughts took another channel. Out of respect 
to Reinette, who would of course be clad in the deepest 
mourning she could find in New York, she and her 
daughter-in-law, Mrs. Tom, and Anna, must at least 
wear black when they first met her. “Not that she cared 
for Fred Hetherton,” she said, “ who had thought no 
more of her than he did of a squav/. But Margaret's girl 
was different,” and in spite of Phil’s pretest against the 
absurdity of the thing, the old lady bustled off in the hot 
sun to consult with Mrs. Lydia. The news of Mr. He- 
therton’s death had preceded her, and she had only to 
plunge into business at once, and insist that a bombazine 
which she had never worn since she left off her widow’s 
weeds, and which was now much toe small for her, 
should be let out and made longer, and fixed generally, 
and she talked so fast and so decidedly that Mrs. Tom, 
who never had any positive opinions of her own, and 
who liked to please her mother-in-law because of the 
money she was supposed to hold in store for Anna, was 
compelled to take her apprentice from a piece of work 
promised for the next day, and put her upon the bom- 
bazine which grandma had brought with her. Against 
mourning for herself, however. Miss Anna stoutly re- 
belled. She had tried the effect of the Swiss muslin the 


66 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


lovely lace scarf, the blush-rose and white parasol, and 
was not to be persuaded to abandon it, she said, for 
** forty dead Hethertons.” So the young lady was suf- 
fered to do as she liked, but the entire village was ran- 
sarked after shawls, and vails, and bonnets, for the two 
Mrs. Fergusons, who were to go up in the Rossiter car- 
riage and appear as sorry and miserable as the deepest 
black could make them. Mr. Tom Ferguson, of whom 
scarcely anything has been said, and who was a plain, 
quiet, second-class grocer, and as obstinate in some mat- 
ters as a mule, refused to have any thing to do with the 
affair. 

“ Fred Hetherton had never spoken to or looked at 
him when a boy, and he shouldn’t go after him now,” he 
said. “ He should stay at home and mind his own busi- 
ness, and let Phil and the women folks run the funeral.” 

This resolution Anna in her secret heart thought a 
very sensible one. If possible she was more ashamed 
of her father than of the sign in her mother’s window ; 
and she would far rather that handsome stylish Phil 
should ride with her then her old-fashioned father, whom 
Reinette was sure to take for a peasant. But when the 
carriage came round for the mourning party Phil was 
not in it ; nor did the coachman know where his young 
master was ; his orders were to drive the ladies to the 
station, and that was all he knew, and Anna, always sus- 
picious, felt like striking him because of the insolent 
look in his face when she bade him dismount from his 
box and open the carriage door for them. 

“ He would not dare treat her Aunt Rossiter and 
cousins like that ; neither would Phil have left them to 
go up alone,” she thought, as she took her seat pout- 
ingly, wondering where Phil was, and if he would keep 
aloof fr::m them at the station, just to show Reinette that 
he recognized the difference between himself and his 
relatives. 

And while she thought thus jealously of Phil, he, with 


REINEl^TE ARRIVES. 




the perspiration standing in great drops upon his face, 
and with his cuffs pulled up from his white wrists, was 
w^orking like a beaver in the “ Hetherton lot,” which Mr. 
Beresford, on his return from selecting the site for the 
grave, had reported “ a perfect swamp of briers and 
weeds.” It would never answer, Phil said, to let Reinette 
tear her dress on briers, and get her feet entangled in 
weeds. Something must be done, although there was 
but little time in which to do it, and he began to hunt 
about for some man to help him : but no one was to be 
found, while even the sexton was busy with the grave of 
a town pauper who was to be buried that afternoon. 

Phil was very tired, for he had been busy since the 
arrival of Reinette’s telegram at his grandmother’s, his 
Aunt Lydia’s, his own home, and at Hetherton Place, 
where he filled the rooms with flowers brought from the 
Knoll gardens and conservatory and wdth the beautiful 
pond lilies which he went himself upon the river to pro- 
cure. The most of these he arranged in Reinette’s cham- 
ber, for there was a great pity in Phil’s heart for the 
young girl whose home-coming would be so sad. Of 
himself, or how he would impress Reinette, he never but 
once thought, and that when, chancing to pass the mir- 
ror, he caught sight of his hat, which was rather the 
worse for wear. 

“ I certainly must honor my cousin with a new hat, 
for this is unpardonably shabby,” he thought, and re- 
membering his bet with Arthur Beresford, and how sure 
he was to win, he went into a hatter’s on his return to 
town, and selecting a soft felt, which was very becom 
ing, and added to his jaunty appearance, he had it 
charged to his friend, and then went in quest of some 
laborer to take with him to the grave-yard. 

B'»<- there was none to be found, and so he set ofl 
aione with hoe and rake, and sickle, and waged so vigor- 
ous a warfare upon the weeds, and grass, and I riers, that 
the lot, though far from being presentable, was soon 


REINETTE ARE/ FES. 


6S 

greatly changed in its app.“rance. But Phil hid miscal 
culated the time, and while pruning the willows which 
drooped over Mrs. Hetherton s grave, he suddenly heard 
in the distance the whistle of the train not over a mile 
away. 

To drop his knife, don his coat, and wipe the blood 
from a bramble scratch on his hand, was the work of an 
instant, and then Phil went flying across the fields the 
shortest way to the station, racing with the locomotive 
speeding so swiftly across the meadows by the river-side 
until it reached the station, where a crowd of people was 
collected, and where grandma and Mrs. Lydia waited in 
their black, and Anna in her white, while Mr. Beresford, 
who had come up in his own carriage, stood apart from 
them, nervous and expectant, and wondering where Phil 
could be — poor Phil ! tumbling over stone walls, bound- 
ing over fences, and leaping over bogs in his great haste 
to be there, and only stopping to breathe when he rolled 
suddenly down a bank and was obliged to pick himself 
and his hat up, and wipe the dirt from his pants and rub 
his grazed ankle. Theti he v^ent on, but the train had 
deposited its freight, living and dead, and shot away 
under the bridge, leaving upon the platform a young 
girl w'ith a white, scared face, and great bright black eyes, 
which flashed upon the staring crowd glances of wonder 
and inquiry. 

It was an exquisite little figure, with grace in every 
movement ; but the crape which Grandma Ferguson 
had expected to see upon it was not there. Indeed, it 
had never occurred to Reinette that mourning was 
needed to tell of the bitter pain at her heart ; and she 
wore the same gray camel’s hair which had done duty 
on shipboard, and which, though very plain, fitted her 
so admirably, and was so unmistakably stylish and 
Parisian, that Anna began at once to think how she would 
copy it. Reinette’s sailor hat was the color of her dress, 
and twisted around it and then tied under her chin was 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


69 


a long blue veil, while her gloves ere of embi :>idered 
Lisle thread, and cane far up under the deep white Puff, 
which was worn ounide her closely fitting sleeve. 

All this Anna noted at a single glance, as she dia the 
dainty little boot, which the short dress made so visible. 

“ She isn’t in black ; you might have saved yourself 
all that bother,” Anna said, under her breath, while her 
grandmother was thinking the same thing and sighing 
regretfully for the cool muslin lying at home, while 
she was sweating at every pore in her heavy bom- 
bazine. 

But she meant well, and secure in this consciousness, 
she pressed forward to welcome and embrace her grand- 
child, just as Mr. Beresford stepped up to the young 
lady. 

The crowd of people had confused and bewildered 
Reinette, and, for an instant she had thought of nothing 
but the box which was being lifted from the car, and 
which Pierre, half crazed himself, was superintending, 
while he jabbered first his unintelligible French, and 
then his scarcely more intelligible English. But when 
the box was carefully put down and the train had started, 
she threw rapid glances around her in quest of the only 
one on whom she felt she had any claim, Mr. Beresford, 
her father’s friend and agent who was looking at her, 
curiously, and thinking at first that though very stylish 
she certainly was not handsome. But when, in their 
rapid sweep, the dark eyes fell upon him and seemed to 
rest there inquiringly he began to change his mir d ; and 
as the Ferguson party were evidently waiting for him to 
make the first advance, and Phil was not there, he 
walked up to her, and offering her his hand, said, n his 
V7cll-bred, gentlemanly way. 

“ Miss Helherton, I believe? ” 

In Reinette’s mind Mr. Beresford had always seemed 
a gray-haired, middle-aged man, as old or older then her 
father, and she had no idea that this yourg, good'^ 


70 


REINETTE ARRIVES, 


looking stranger, with the handsome teeth and pleasant 
smile and voice, was he ; so she withheld her hand from 
his offered one , and stepping back a little, said in per- 
fect English, but with a very pretty foreign accent : 

“ I am looking for Mr. Beresford, please ; do you 
know him ? — W he here ?” 

It was such a sweet, musical voice, and had in it 
something so timid and appealing that Mr. Beresford 
felt his pulses quicken as they had never done before. 

“ I am Mr. Beresford,” he replied, and the lightning 
glance which the bright eyes flashed into his face almost 
blinded him, for Reinette’s eyes were wonderful for their 
brilliancy and continually varying expression, and few 
men ever stood unmoved before them. 

“ Mr. Arthur Beresford ? Are you Mr. Arthur, 
father’s friend ? ” she asked : 

“Yes, Mr. Arthur, your father’s friend,” and again 
his hand was extended toward her. 

Reinette had kept up her composure ever since the 
moment when she knew her father was dead, and had 
even tried to seem cheerful on the train and had talked 
of the places they were passing to some people who had 
been on the Russia with her, and were on their way to 
their home in Boston, but at sight of Mr. Beresford, her 
father’s friend, whom she was to trust with everything, 
her forced calmness gave way, and she broke down en- 
tirely. Taking both his hands in hers, she bent her face 
over them and sobbed like a little child. 

It was a very novel position in which the grave bach- 
elor Beresford found himself — a girl crying on his 
hands, with all those people looking on ; and still he 
rather liked it, for there was something very touching 
in the way those fingers clung to his, and in his confu- 
sion he was not quite sure that he did not press them a 
little, but before he could think what to say jr do 
Grandma Ferguson stood close to him, and as Reinette 
lifted her head a pair of arms was thrown around her 


REINETTU ARRIVES. 


V 


neck, and a voice which her patrician ears detected at 
once as untrained and uneducated, exclaimed : 

My dear Rennet, I am so glad to see my daughter’s 
girl.” 

With a motion as swift and graceful as the motions 
of a kitten, Reinette freed herself from the smothering 
embrace, and the eyes, in which the tears were still shin- 
ing, blazed with astonishment and indignation at the lib- 
erty taken by this strange woman, whose tout ensemble she 
took in at a glance, and who said again, “ My dear child, 
I am so sorry for yoa.” 

“ Madam, I don’t understand you,” Reinette replied, 
drawing nearer to Mr. Beresford, and holding faster to 
his hand, as if for protection and safety. 

Neither did grandma understand, but Mr. Beresford 
did, and knew that the existence of the Fergusons was 
wholly unknown to Reinette, who, as if to breathe more 
freely, untied the blue veil, and taking it from her neck 
and hat, stood like a hunted creature at bay ; while Mrs 
Ferguson, nothing abashed, and simply thinking the gir 
might be a little deaf, raised her voice and said : 

“I am your grandmarm — your mother’s mother ; and 
this,” turning to her daughter-in-law, “ is your A’nt 
Lyddy Ann — your Uncle Tom’s wife ; and this one,” 
nodding to Anna, who understood the state of things bet- 
ter than her grandmother, and was hot with resentment 
and anger, “ this is your Cousin Anny.” 

Releasing her hand from Mr. Beresford’s, Reinette, 
with dexterous rapidity, wrenched off her gloves, as if 
they, like the veil, were burdensome ; and Anna, who 
hated her own long, slim fingers, with the needle-pricks 
upon them, saw, with a pang of envy, how soft and 
small, and white were her cousin’s hands, with the dim- 
ples at the joints, and the costly jewels shining on them. 

Mrs. Lydia, who feJt quite overawed in the presence 
of this foreign girl, did not speak, but courtesied straight 
up and dow 1 ; while Anna put on a show of cordialitv, 


7a 


REINETTE ARRIVES, 


and, offering her hand, made a most profound bow, as 
she said : 

“ I am glad. Cousin Reinette, to make your acquaint- 
ance, and you are very welcome to America.” 

“ Thanks,” murmured Reinette in her soft, foreign ac- 
cent, just as Grandma Ferguson spoke again : 

“ And this is another cousin, Philip Rossiter — your 
A’nt Mary’s boy.” 

Phil had come at last, and stood looking over his 
grandmother’s shoulder at the new arrival. His face was 
very red with his recent exercise, and a little soiled by 
the hands which had come in contact with fences and 
walls, and bogs, and then wiped the perspiration from it, 
so that he was not quite as jaunty and handsome as usual. 
At a glance he had seen how matters stood. Miss Rei- 
nette did not take kindly to her new relatives, if indeed 
she believed they were her relatives at all. Miss Rei- 
nette was neither an Amazon nor a blonde ; she was pe- 
tite and a brunette. He had lost his bet; the new hat he 
wore so airily was not his, but Mr. Beresford’s, and 
quick as thought he snatched it from his head and ex- 
changed with his friend, just as he was presented to Rei- 
nette as another cousin. 

Instantly the large, bright black eyes darted toward 
him a perplexed, vrondering look, but aside from that 
there was no response to the lifting of Phil’s old hat. 
Another cousin was the straw too many, and Reinette 
fairly gasped as she involuntarily said to herself in 
French, “ 1 believe I shall die then, taking the sailor 
hat from her head, she fanned herself furiously, while the 
look of a hunted, worried creature deepened on her dark, 
flushed face and shone in her flashing eyes. 

Just then Pierre came to the rescue, and said some- 
thing to her in his own language, whereupon she turned 
swiftly to Mr. Beresford and said : 

“You* received my telegram? You will bury him 
straight from here ?” ' 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


73 

“Yes,” he answered, “and I believe every thing is 
* ready. Shall I take you to your carriage ?” 

“ Yes, yes ! Oh, do !” she replied, and placing her 
hat on her head again, she took his arm, and Anna always 
insisted that she held her skirts back as with the air of a 
grand duchess, she walked past them to the carriage, 
the door of which the coachman held open with as much 
respect as if she had been a queen. 

Reinette must have guessed the intention of her new 
relatives to ride with her, for she said, rapidly and low, 
to Mr. Beresford : 

“ You go with me, of course, and Pierre ; he loved 
father ; he is nearer to me now than any one in the wide 
world.” 

“ Why, yes ; only I think your relatives — your grand- 
mother will naturally expect to accompany you,” Mr. 
Beresford answered, and Reinette said quickly : 

“ My relatives ! my grandmother ! Mr. Beresford, 
father said I was to ask you everything. Are they my 
grandmother? Tell me true.” 

Mr. Beresford could not repress a smile at the way she 
put the question, in her vehemence, but he answered her 
very low and cautiously, as the Ferguson party was close 
behind : 

“ I think they are.” 

Then, as a sudden idea flashed upon him, he con- 
tinued : 

“ Was your father twice married ?” 

“No, never, never !” 

“Tell me, then, please, your mother’s name ?” 

“ Margaret Ferguson, and she died in Rome, when I 
was born.” 

He had her in the carriage by this time, and her eyes 
were looking straight into his as he began : 

“ If your mother was Margaret Ferguson, and died in 
Rome, I am afraid ” 

He did not go on, for something in the black eyes 


4 


74 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


stopped him suddenly, and warned him that if these peo« 
pie were indeed her relatives she would suffer no insin- 
nations against them. She was ItKe Phil in that respect ; 
what was hers she would defend, and, when Mrs. Fergu- 
son's red face appeared at the door, Reinette moved to 
tlie other side of the seat, and said : 

“ Here, grandmother, sit by me, please.” 

She had acknowledged her by name, at least, and 
Reinette felt better, and only clenched her hands hard as 
Mrs. Lydia and Anna disposed of themselves on the soft 
cushions opposite, the young lady stepping on and tear- 
ing her long lace scarf. 

“ You didn’t orter wear it. Such jimcracks ain’t for 
funerals. Rennet hain’t got on none,” grandma said, 
while Anna frowned insolently, and Reinette looked on 
and shivered, and held her hands tighter together, and 
thought how dreadful it all was, and how it could be 
that these people belonged to her, who at heart was the 
veriest aristocrat ever born. 

Phil did not come near her, but kept close to Mr. 
Beresford’s carriage, and to Pierre, to whom he spoke in 
French, thereby so delighting the old man that he began 
to jabber so rapidly and gesticulate so vehemently that 
Phil lost the thread entirely, and shook his head in token 
that he did not understand. Without exactly knowing 
why, Phil felt uncomfortable and ashamed, and the Fer- 
guson blood had never seemed so distasteful to him as 
now. Reinette had seen them first, and so ignored him, and 
he did not like it at all. Had there been no step-grand- 
mother, nor aunt, nor Cousin Anna, he could have come 
up by himself, he thought, in his father’s handsome car- 
riage, with the high-stepping bays, and the coachman, 
who, without the aid of livery, looked so respectable and 
dignified upon the box, and it would all have been so 
different. But now lie felt slighted and overlooked, and 
shabby, and there was a soiled spot on the knee of his 
pants, and his hands were cut with briers and dirty, too, 


REINETTE ARRIVES, 


75 


and there was nothing airy or exquisite about him as he 
entered Mr. Beresford’s barouche with that gentleman 
and Pierre, and followed the other carriage where Rein- 
ette sat, silent and motionless, with her blue veil tied 
closely over her face as if to hide it from the eyes oppo- 
site scanning her so curiously. 

Never once did she look from the carriage window, 
or evince the slightest interest in any thing around her, 
and when, as they reached the village and turned into the 
main street, Mrs. Ferguson motioned with her hand to 
the right, and said : 

“ There, Rennet — way down there under them popple 
trees is the house where I live, and where your mother 
was born,” she never turned her head, or gave a sign 
that she heard ; only the hands locked so tightly to- 
gether, worked a little more nervously, and there was an 
involuntary shrug of her shoulders, which Anna resented 
hotly. 

At last, as the silence became unbearable to grandma, 
she said to Reinette : 

“ I s’pose you don't remember your mother.” 

Reinette shook her head, and grandma continued : 

“ How old was you when she died ?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

Don’t know how old you was when your mother 
tiled ? That’s curis. Didn’t your father never tell you ?” 

“No, madam.” 

Wall, now. Don’t you think that’s singular?” and 
grjik.idma looked at her daughter-in-law and Anna, the 
latter of whom seized the opportunity to spit out her 
venojn, and said : 

“Not singular at all, and if I’s you, grandma, I 
wouldn’t bother Reinette with troublesome questions, for 
I’ve no idea that she evei heard of us until to-day, let 
alone he/ knowing how old she was when her mother 
died.” 

Anna spoke spitefully, and had the satisfaction o^ see- 


76 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


ing the black eyes under the thin veil unclose and Hash 
at her just once, while grandma replied : 

“Never heard of us till to-day! Never heard she 
had a grandmother ! Be you crazy, Anny ? Do you 
s’pose her father never told her of her mother’s folks? 
Rennet, do you hear that ? I hope you can contradict 
it.” 

Thus appealed to Reinette roused herself, and in a 
voice choking with sobs, said : 

“ Oh, please — don’t worry me now ; by and by I can 
talk with you, but now — oh, father, father, why did you 
die and leave me here alone.” 

The sob was a wailing, heart-broken cry, and the lit- 
tle hands were upraised and beat the air in a paroxysm 
of nervous pain for an instant, then dropped helplessly, 
and Reinette never moved again until they turned into 
the cemetery and stopped before the Hetherton lot. 
Then she started, and throwing back her veil, said, hur- 
riedly : 

“ What is it ? Are we there ?” 

Grandma Ferguson, who, since Reinette’s pitiful out- 
burst, had been crying softly to herself, wiped her eyes 
and said : 

“Yes, darling, this is the Hetherton lot. It has been 
left to run down this many a year, but will look better 
by and by. Hadn’t you better stay in the carriage ? 
You can if you want to.” 

“No, no, oh, no. I must be with father,” Reinette 
replied, and opening the door herself, she sprang to the 
ground, and was first at the open grave, where she stood 
immovable until they began to lower the body. Then 
she exclaimed : 

“ Oh, are there no flowers for him ? Did no one 
bring a flower, when he loved them so much ?” and her 
eyes flashed rebukingly upon those who had brought no 
flowers for the dead man. 

Then she was quiet again until there was a creaking 


REINETTE ARRIVES, 


77 


bound in the ropes and the coffin slipped a little, when, 
with a cry of alarm, she sprang forward and bent over 
the grave as if to see that no harm was coming to her 
father. There was danger in her position, and Piiil 
went quickly to her side, and laying his hand on her 
shoulder, said to her, very gently : 

“ Please stand farther back. There is quicksand here, 
and the earth might crumble.” 

She never looked at him, but she stepped backward a 
few paces and did not move again until the grave was 
filled, and her father — he who had so longed to come 
home that he might begin anew and make amends in part 
for his past life — was hidden forever from sight with all 
the dark catalogue of his sins unconfessed save as he 
had whispered them into the ear of the Most High when 
death sat on his pillow and counted his heart-beats. 

Meanwhile Phil, with his usual forethought, had in- 
terviewed his grandmother in an aside and suggested to 
her that as Reinette would undoubtedly prefer going 
alone with Mr. Beresford to her new home, the ladies 
should return to town in the carriage of the latter and 
call on his cousin the following day. 

Grandma, whose heart was set upon going to Heth- 
erton Place, where she had not been since she was turned 
from its door by its enraged master, would have de- 
murred at this arrangement were it not that hei heavy 
crape was weighing her down, and making her long for 
the coolness of her own house and her thin muslin.” 
As it was, she made no objection, and when it was time 
to go, she went to Reinette and said : 

“ Phil thinks you’d ruther be alone the fust night 
home, and I guess he’s right, so if you’ll excuse your 
A’nt Liddy, and me and Anny, we’ll come early to-mor- 
row and see you, and have a long talk about your 
mother. Good-by, and Heaven bless you, child.” 

While she was speaking Reinette looked steadily in 
her face, and something in its expression attracted more 


78 


REINETTE ARRIVES. 


than it repelled her. It was a good, kind, honest face> 
and had seen her mother, and Reinette’s lip quivered as 
she held out her hand and said : 

“ Thank you, it will be better so ; good-by.” 

There was another up and down courtesy from Mrs. 
Lydia, another cold, stately bow from Miss Anna, whose 
turned-up hat, cream feather, blue sash, and long lace 
scarf, Reinette noted a second time, and then the ladies 
walked to the Beresford carriage, where Phil was waiting 
for them. 

‘‘ Well, we’ve seen the great sight. Pray, what do 
you think of her ?” Anna asked him when they left the 
cemetery and turned into the highway. 

Phil did not like the tone of her voice, and was on his 
guard at once. 

“I’ve not seen enough of her yet to have an opinion,” 
he said ; ” nor'can she appear herself. She is in great 
trouble, and all alone in a strange country. We must 
make every allowance for her.” 

“ Yes, of course ; I knew you’d stand up for her, just 
because she’s a Hetherton and rich,” Anna replied. 
“ For my part, I hate her !” 

This was Anna’s favorite expression if she did not 
like a person, and she went on : 

“ If we had been the lowest people living she could 
not have shown more contempt for us. I know she had 
never heard of a soul of us till to-day, and I just wish 
you could have seen her when grandma claimed her as a 
grandchild. Where were you, Phil ? What was keeping 
you ? 

He explained where he was, and she continued ; 

“You might have spared yourself the trouble. I 
don’t believe she’ll thank you. She just threw her ":ead 
back and stared at grandma in such an impertinen" way 
that 1 wanted to box her ears, especially when she said 
so haughtily, ‘ Madam, I don’t understand you.' She 
Plight have added, ‘and I don’t believe you either ; my 


REINETTE ARE/^ES. 


79 


mother never came from such stock.’ That’s what sue 
meant, and what her eyes and voice expressed. I don’t 
believe she looked at ma or me, though she did just touch 
the tips of my fingers. She had taken off her veil at 
grandma, and torn off her gloves for us — cotton, they 
were, too ; and when you came, and grandma said, 
‘ Here’s another cousin,’ she snatched off her sailor h:U 
and fanned herself rapidly, as if you were the straw tc;o 
many. Ves, I hate her, and I think her iust as homely 
as she can be, with her turn-up nose and lip. She’s as 
black, too, as the ace of spades, and those great, big, 
staring eyes are as insolent and proud as they can be, 
but I dare say you and Mr. Beresford are both in love 
with her." 

Phil did not care to discuss the matter with his un- 
reasonable cousin, who rattled on until the carriage 
stopped at Mrs. Ferguson’s door. Glad of the chance to 
escape from Anna’s tirade, Phil said he would walk 
home, and so the carriage drove on, leaving him standing 
by the gate with his grandmother, who said : 

“ Such a tongue as Anny’s got ! — hung in the middle, 
I do believe. She must git it from the Rices, for the 
Fergusons ain’t an atom backbity. Of course Rennet 
ain’t exactly what I thought Margaret’s girl would be, 
but — then — everything is strange and new to her. She’s 
all Hetherton, and the very image of the old lady, Fred's 
mother. But you and I’ll stand by her Phil. Poor little 
lonesome critter ! how I pity her, alone in that great 
house, with her father dead in the grave-yard, and her 
mother dead over the seas !’’ 

There were tears in grandma’s eyes, and Phil felt a 
lump in his own throat as he walked rapidly away, re- 
peating her words to himself . 

“ Poor little girl ! Alone in that great house, with, 
her father dead in the grave-yard, and her mother dead 
over the sea." 

Phil was still a little sore and disappointed. He had 


So 


REINETTE ARRIVES, 


made no impression upon Reinette, except it were one of 
disgust. And everything had turned out so differentiy from 
what he had hoped. Even Reinette was wholly difiterent 
from his idea of her. The tall Amazon, with pink and 
white complexion and yellow hair, had proved to be a 
wee little creature, with dark eyes, and hair, and face, 
but still with something indescribably bewitching and 
graceful, in every turn of her head and motion of her 
body, while the clear, bell-like tones of her voice, with its 
pretty accent, rang continually in his ears, and he began 
to envy Mr. Beresford the pleasure of having her all to 
himself for an indefinite length of time. 

What would she say to him ? Would she talk like any 
girl, and ask him “who the Fergusons were,” and who 
“ the long-legged spooney with the dirty face and hands 
and the grass stains on his pants ?“ Phil had reached 
home by this time, and had seen in the glass that his 
personal appearance was not as prepossessing as it 
might be. 

“ Upon my word,” he said, as he contemplated himself 
in the mirror, “ I am a beauty. Look at that streak of 
dirt upon my forehead, and that spot on my nose, and 
that blood stain under my eye, and, to crown all, Beres- 
ford’s old hat. I Icok for all the world like a prize- 
fighter, I who fancied there w^as something so disHjtgzie 
high-toney about me that Reinette would see it at once, and 
she never even bowed to me, but said she felt like dying.” 

Here the Indicrousness of the whole affair came over 
Phil so forcibly that he burst into a loud, merry laugh^ 
which was like thunder on a sultry day. It cleared the 
atmosphere, and Phil was himself again, or would be 
after the long ride on horseback which he determined to 
take into the country. 

Calling John the stable-boy he bade him saddle Pluto, 
his riding horse, and was soon galloping off at a furious 
rate, going eastward first until he came to a fork in the 
road, where he turned an i rode in the direction cl 


REINETTE ARRl VES, 


8i 


Hetherton Place. He had no intention of stopping 
there — no expectation of seeing Reinette, unless Provi- 
dence should interfere. But Providence did not inter 
fere, and he saw no sign of human life about the house. 

The windows of Reinette’s chamber were open and in 
one of them sat Mrs. Speckle, the cat, evidently absorbed 
in something going on inside — the gambols of her three 
kittens, perhaps. 

The Rossiter carriage was not in the yard, and by 
that token Phil knew that Mr. Beresford must have 
returned to town, and that he had missed meeting him 
by having made the circuit of what was called the Flat- 
iron. 

Phil did not quite understand why he felt glad to 
know that his friend had not made a long stay with 
Reinette, but he glad, and rode on quite cheerfully 
for three or four miles, when he turned and came back 
more slowly, reaching Hetherton just as the sun was 
setting. 

As before, everything was quiet, and no one was to 
be seen until he came opposite a great ledge of rocks on 
the hill-side higher up than the house itself and command- 
ing a still better view of the surrounding country. This 
ledge, which covered quite a space of ground and was 
in some places as level as the floor, presented in other 
sections a broken, uneven appearance, like a succession 
of little rooms, and one niche in particular was called 
the “ Lady’s Chair ” from its peculiar formation of seat, 
sides and back. Here with the fading sunlight falling 
upon it, sat a little figure in gray with the blue veil 
twisted round the hat, and the hands folded together 
and lying upon the lap, reminding Phil of that picture 
of Evangeline sitting by the river and watching the dis- 
tant boat. Pierre was kneeling upon the rock beside 
his mistress, and stretched at her feet was the watch-dog, 
King, with whom she had already made friends. The 
three made a very pretty picture far up the hill- side 


4 * 


REINETTE AT HOME. 


%2 

with the western sky behind them, and Phil, without 
knowing whether he was seen or not, involuntarily raised 
his hat. But the courtesy was not acknowledged, and 
he bit his lip with vexation as he galloped rapidly on 
thinking to himself : 

“ Hang the girl, I believe Anna is half right. She 
is proud as Lucifer, and means to cut us all. Well, let 
her. Maybe she’ll find some day that a Rossiter is 
quite as good as a Hetherton !” 

In Phil’s estimation Reinette was not altogether a 
success, but then he did not krow her. 


CHAPTER IX. 

REINETTE AT HOME. 

HEN Phil envied Mr. Beresford his oppor- 
tunity for being alone with Reinette and lis- 
tening to her conversation, he made a mistake, 
for during the first of the drive from the 
cemetery to Hetherton Place, she scarcely spoke to him, 
but sat with closed eyes and locked hands, leaning back 
in a corner of the carriage, as motionless as if she had 
been asleep. Once, however, when they were crossing 
the river, she looked out and asked : 

Isn’t this the Chicopee ?” and on being told it was, 
she said to Pierre, in French : 

**This is the river, Pierre, where papa used to gather 
the pond lilies when he was a boy. It empties into the 
Connecticut as the Seine does into the sea. You know 
you looked it out on the map for me.” 

Pierre nodded, and Reinette, although she now kept 
her eyes open, did not speak again until they reached the 



REINETTE 4T HOME. 


83 


long hill which wound up to the house Then, as she 
saw TO her left a lovely little sheet of water sparkling in 
the sunlight, she started up, exclaiming : 

“ That must be Lake Petit, where father used to keep 
his boat, the Waif.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Beresford, surprised at her knowl- 
edge of the neighborhood. “Your grandmother, Mrs^ 
Iletherton, called it Lake Petit, I believe, but to most of 
the people here it is the Mill Pond.” 

Reinette shrugged her shoulders, and asked ; 

“ Isn’t it on papa’s land ?” 

“Yes, it belongs to the Hetherton estate,” was the 
reply, and she continued, in a decisive tone : 

“ Then it is never any more to be Mill Pond. It is 
Lake Petit forever.” 

They were half way up the hill by this time, and as 
one after another views of the surrounding countrv 
greeted Reinette’s wondering gaze, her delight knew no 
bounds, and, forgetting for a moment the load of pain at 
her heart, she gave vent to her delight in true girlish 
fashion, uttering little screams of surprise and gladness, 
and occasionally seizing Pierre by the shoulder and 
shaking him to make him see what she was seeing, and 
appreciate it, too. 

“ It’s better than Switzerland, better than France — 
better than anything ! I like America,’* she cried, but 
Pierre shook his head, and gave a sigh for “ La Belle 
France,” the best country in the world, where he wished 
he had staid, he said, adhering to his opinion in spite of 
all his mistress could say. 

Mr. Beresford could not understand them, but he 
Knew that some altercation was going on between them, 
and was astonished to see the different expressions which 
passed in an instant over Reinette’s face, and how beau- 
tiful she grew as the bright color came and went, and 
she sparkled, and flashed, and laughed, and frowned, 
and shook up the stupid Pierre all in the same breath. 


84 


REINETTE AT HOME, 


They were driving up to tl e house by this time, and the 
moment the carriage stopped she sprang to the ground 
and began to look about her, gesticulaiing rapidly, and 
talking now in French and now in English, now to Mr. 
Beresford and now to Pierre, who was almost as excited 
as she was. The chateau, as she called it, was so much 
larger than she supposed, and the grounds more preten- 
tious, and “ Oh, the flowers !” she cried, darting in among 
them like a little humming-bird, and filling her hands 
with the sweet summer pinks, which she pressed to her 
lips and kissed as if they had been living things and 
sharers of her joy. 

“The flowers are the same everywhere, and I love them 
so much, and the world is so bright just like a picture, 
up here where it is so high ; so near Heaven, and I am 
so happy,” she exclaimed, as she hopped about ; then 
suddenly as a cloud passes over the sun on an April day, 
a shadow came over her face and great tears rolled down 
her cheeks as, turning to Mr. Beresford, she said, “What 
must you think of me to be so gay, and he dead over in 
the grave-yard ? But it is one part of me ; there are two 
natures in me you see, and I can’t help it, though all the 
time I’m missing him so much, and there’s a pain in my 
heart and a lump in my throat till it feels as if it would 
burst. And still I must love the brightness even though 
it’s all dark where he lies alone. Oh, father, if you, too 
were here !” 

She was sobbing bitterly, and Pierre was crying 
too, even while he tried to comfort her. Suddenly at 
something he said her sobbing ceased, and dashing the 
tears from her eyes she smiled brightly at Mr. Beresford 
and said : 

“ Forgive me, do, for troubling you with an exhibition 
of my grief. I forgot myself. Father told me not to cry 
before people, and I will not again. Come, let us go into 
the chateau ; it looks so coal and inviting with the doors 
and windows open and the muslin cu tains blowing in 


REINETTE AT HOME. 


5*5 

&nd out, and the scent of clover and new hav evervwliere 
The world is very beautiful, and I mean to be happy.” 

During this scene in the grounds Mrs. Jeiry, the 
housekeeper, had been inspecting the little lady from 
behind the kitctien blinds, and now, as the party entered 
the wide hall, she came forward to meet her in her neat 
calico dress and clean linen collar, with her hair combed 
smoothly back from her frank, open brow. She knew she 
was there on trial, subject to Miss Reinette’s fancy, and as 
she liked the place, and was desirous of keeping it, she 
naturally felt some anxiety with regard to the impression 
she should make upon the girl. She was not long kept 
in suspense, for something in her face attracted Reinette 
at once, and without the least hauteur in her manner she 
went forward with outstretched hands, and said : 

“Mrs. Jerry, I am so glad you are here, I know I 
shall like you, and you must like me in all my moods, 
for I am not always alike. There are two of me, one 
good and one bad — though I mean to shut the bad one 
out of doors in this my new home. And now, please, 
take these flowers and put them in water for me. I don't 
wish any one to show me over the house.” 

Turning now to Mr. Beresford she said, 

“ I’d rather find my way alone and guess which is 
my room and which v/as meant for him,” — here her li|> 
began to quiver, but she kept up bravely and went on : 

“ You will come and see me to-morrow, and I shall ask 
you so many things. Father said I was to trust you and 
go to you for everything. By and by, though, I shall 
take care of myself. And now, good-by till to-morrow 
afternoon.” 

She gave him her hand, and he had no alternative but 
to go, although he would so gladly have lingered hunger, 
so deeply interested was he already in this strange girl 
with the two natures, one proud, cold, scornful, and pas- 
sionate ; the other gentle, and soft, and sweet as the 
flowers she loved so dearly. He might have been more 


86 


JRLIAETTE AT HOME. 


interested still had he seen her standing in the dooi with^ 
the great tears drooping from her long eyelashes as she 
watched him going down the hill and felt that now, 
indeed, she was alone in her <5^«^^ation with her new 
life all before her. 

“ I like him because he was father’s friend, and 
because he seems a gentleman," she thought ; and then 
as she remembered those other people who had claimed her 
for their own, and who were not like Mr. Beresford, she 
shuddered and felt her other self mastering her again. 

Just then Mrs. Jerry appeared, asking if she could 
do anything for her, and if she would not like to go to 
her room. 

“ No, no — go away !" Reinette answered, almost 
angrily ; “ I want nothing but to be let alone. I can 
find my way. I must work it out myself." 

So Mrs. Jerry went back to the kitchen, and Pierre, 
who knew the first approaches of his mistress’ moods, 
sat down upon the grass quietly waiting the progress of 
events. 

Reinette’s face was very white, and as was usual 
when she was trying to repress her feelings, her hands 
were locked together as she stood looking about her at 
the trees under which her rather had played when a boy, 
and the honeysuckle which grew over the trellis-work 
and which must have blossomed for him, and more than 
all at his fnitials cut by himself on the door-post. Then 
with a little smothered cry she turned suddenly, and 
ran up stairs to the room which she had heard described 
fto often, and which at a glance she knew was her& 


THE TWO REINETTES, 


«7 


CHAPTER X. 

THE TWO REINETTES. 

H, how lovely it is !" she cried, as she entered 
the room and took it all in as rapidly as 
Phil himself could have done. “ What per- 
fect taste Mr. Beresford must have !" she 
continued. “It is just as I would have it, except the 
blue ribbons, which do not suit my black face. But 
I can soon change them, and then everything will be 
faultless ; and — oh — oh — the cats !” she screamed, as 
she caught sight of Mrs. Speckle, who, with her three 
children, was purring contentedly in the cushioned arm- 
chair by the window. “ Cats / and I love them so much ; 
he has remembered everything V* and bounding across 
the floor, Reinette knelt by the chair and buried her 
face in the soft fur of the kittens, who, true to their 
feline instincts, recognized in her a friend, and began at 
once to pat her neck and ears with their velvety paws, 
while Mrs. Speckle, feeling a little crowded, vacated the 
chair and seated herself upon the window-stool, where 
Phil saw her when he rode by. 

The sight of the cats carried Reinette back to the day 
when her father had written his directions to Mr. Beres- 
ford and she had made suggestions. How careful he 
had been to remember all her likes and dislikes, and 
bow pale and tired he had looked after the letter was 
finished, and how unjust and thoughtless she had been 
to feel aggrieved because he said he was not able to drive 
with her in the Bois de Boulogne after dinner was over. 
And now he was dead, and she was alone in a strange 
new world, with only Mr. Beresford for a friend, unless 
it were those people who claimed her for a relative — those 
people of whom she had never heard, and against whom 
she rebelled with all the strong force of her imperious 



88 


THE TWO REINETTES, 


nature. She had not had tim^ to consider the matter 
seriously; but now, alone in her cwn room, with the 
doors shut between her and the outside world, it rose 
before her in all its magnitude, v..id lor a time drove 
every other feeling from her. Tue proud aristocratic 
part of her nature was in the ascendant, and battled 
fiercely against her better self. 

Was it possible, she thought, that the loud-voiced 
old lady, who used such dreadful grammar and called 
her Rennet^ and the Aunt Lyddy Ann, who looked like a 
bar-maid, and the tall, showily-dressed Anna, with the 
yellow plume, the cheap lace scarf, and the loud hat, 
such as only the common girls of Paris wore — were 
really the relatives of her beautiful mother, who she had 
always supposed was an Englishwoman, and whom she 
had cherished in her heart as everything that was pure, 
and lovely, and refined ! Her father had said of her once : 

“ I never knew my wife to be guilty of a single 
unlady-like act, and I should be glad, my daughter, if 
you were half as gentle and gracious of manner as she 
was.” 

It is true she had never been able to learn anything 
definite of her mother’s family, for her father, when 
questioned, had either answered evasively, or not at all. 
Once he had said to her, decidedly : 

“ There are reasons why I do not care to talk of your 
mother’s family and it is quite as well that you remain 
in ignorance. Mrs. Hetherton was everything that a 
perfect lady should be. You must be satisfied with that, 
and never trouble me again about your mother’s antece- 
dents.” 

He had seemed very much excited, and there was a 
strange look on his face, as he walked the salon, which 
frightened Reinette a little; and still she persisted so far 
as to say: 

1 am sure mother was an Englishwoman, by her 
picture*” 


THE TWO REINETTES, 


8$ 


* Be satisfied then that you know so much, and don t 
seek for more knowledge. Whatever her friends were, 
they are nothing to me ; they can be nothing to you. Sc 
never mention them again.” 

And she never did; but she almost worshiped the beau- 
tiful face, which had been painted on ivory in Paris when 
her mother was a bride and had rooms at the Hotel Meu- 
rice. It was a fair, lovely face, wdth hair of golden browm, 
and great tender eyes of lustrous blue, with a tinge of sad- 
ness in them, as there was also in the expression around 
the sweet mouth just breaking into a smile. The dress 
was of heavy creamy satin, v/ith pearls upon the neck and 
arms, and on the wavy hair. A refined aristocratic face, 
Reinette thought it, and in spite of her father’s evident 
dislike of her mother’s friends, she never for an instant 
had thought of them as other than fully her equals in 
position and social standing. Probably there had been 
some quarrel which had resulted in lasting enmity, or her 
mother might have been the daughter of some nobleman, 
and eloped with the young American, thus incurring the 
life-long displeasure of her family. This last was Rei- 
nette’s pet theory, and she had more than once resolved 
that when she w'-as her .own mistress she would seek her 
mother’s friends, never doubting that she should find 
them fully equal to the Hcthertons, who, her father said, 
had in their veins the best blood of the land. 

Everything pertaining to her mother was guarded by 
Reinette with great fidei.ty, and in the box where her fa- 
vorite treasures were hidden away was a long, bright tress 
of hair and a few faded flowers, tied together with a 
bit of blue ribbon, to which was attached a piece of paper, 
with the w’^ords, “ My mother’s hair, cut from her head 
after she wms dead, and some of the flowers she held in 
her hands w'hen she lay in her coffin.” 

Among Reinette’s books there was also an old copy 
of “The Lady of the Lake,” on the fly-leaf of which was 
written in a tery pretty hand. “ Margaret, From her sister 


9 © 


THE T WO REINE TTES. 


Mary. Christmas, i8 — This was the only link De^ween 
herself and her mother’s family which Reinette possessed, 
and she built upon it a multitude of theories with regard 
to the Aunt Mary whom she meant some time to find, 
and whom she always s:.., clad in velvet, jewels, and old 
laces, with possibly a coronet on her brow 

Such were Reinette’s ideas o-f her mother’s friends, 
which her father had suffered her to cherish, only 
smiling faintly at some of her extravagant speculations, 
but never contradicting them. And now, in place of 
lords, and ladies, and English nobility, to have these peo~ 
pie thrust upon her, this grandmother, and aunt, and 
cousin, with unmistakable marks of vulgarity stamped 
upon them, was too much, and for a time the proud, 
sensitive girl rebelled against it with all the fierceness 
of her nature, while, mingled with her bitter humiliation 
was a better and deeper feeling, which hurt her far more 
than the mortification of knowing that she was not what 
slie had believed herself to be. Her father, whom she 
had so loved, and honored, and believed in, had not dealt 
fairly with her. 

Why had he not told her the truth, especially after 
he knew they were coming to America, and that she 
must certainly know it seme time? 

“ If he had told me, if he had said a kind word ol 
them, I should have been prepared for it, and lovea 
them, just because they were mother’s people. Oh, 
father, whatever your motive may have been, you did me 
a grievous wrong,” she said, and into her eyes there 
crept a look of resentment toward the father who had 
kept this secret from her. 

Then, as her thoughts went backward to the state- 
room where he died, and the words he said to her, she 
cried out : 

“ I understand now what he meant, and what I was tc 
forgive. He meant to have told me before, he said ; he 
was sorry he had not. Yes, father, I see. While we wer7> 


THE TWO EEINETTES. 


9 * 


in France there v/as no need for me to know, and when 
we started for America it was hard to confess it to me, 
and destroy my beautiful air castles filled with a line 
of ancestry nobler, better, even, than the Hethertons, and 
so you put it off, as you did everything unpleasant, as 
long as possible. You were going to tell me when you 
reached New York, but before we were there you were 
dead, and I was left to meet it alone. Oh, father, I prom- 
ised to forgive and love you just the same, and I will, I 
do — but it’s very, very hard on me, and I must fight it 
out and cast the demon from me before I meet one of 
them again.” 

And in truth Reinette did seem to be fighting with 
some foe as she stood in the center of the room, her face 
as white as ashes, her tearless eyes flashing fire, and her 
hands beating the air more rapidly and fiercely than they 
had done when in the carriage her grandmother ques- 
tioned her of her knowledge of her mother. That was a 
feeble effort compared to what she was doing now as 
she flew about the room striking out here and there as if 
at some tangible object, and sometimes clutching at the 
long curls floating over her shoulders. It was a singular 
sight and not strange at all that Mrs. Speckle, from her 
seat in the window, looked curiously at the young girl 
acting more like a mad than a sane woman, and at the 
three kittens upon the floor, who, fancying all these 
gyrations were for their benefit, jumped and scampered, 
and spit, and pulled at Reinette’s feet and dress in true 
feline delight. 

Suddenly the door opened cautiously and Pierre 
looked in, saying, softly : 

“ Please, Miss Reinette, wouldn’t you come out of it 
quicker if you was to shake me a bit. I shouldn't mind 
it if you didn’t use your nails, and would let my hair 
alone. There isn’t much of it left, you know !” 

Pierre had not lived in his master’s family fourteen 
years without understanding Uis mistress thoroughly, 


9a 


THE TWO REINETTES. 


and that in his heart he worshipped her was proof that he 
had found far more good in her than bad. He knew just 
how kind, and loving, and self-sacrificing she was, and 
how she had cared for hitii when he had the fever in 
Rome, and her father was away in Palestine. In spite 
of the remonstrances of friends she had stood by him 
night and day, for weeks because he missed her when 
she was absent and called for her in his delirium. It 
did not matter that the gayeties of the carnival were in 
progress and that rare facilities were offered her for 
seeing them. She turned her back on them all and staid 
by the sick man who needed her, and who, the physicians 
said, owed his life to her nursing and constant care. 
Pierre had never forgotten it any more than he had for- 
gotten the time when, in a fit of anger she had pounced 
upon his back like a cat and scratched, and bit, and 
pulled his hair until he shook her off and held her till 
her passion had subsided. Her father had punished her 
severely, and she had never behaved so badly since, 
though she sometimes shook Pierre furiously, for by 
contact with some living thing which resisted her she 
could conquer herself more readily, she said ; and when 
there was no one near whom she dared touch she occa- 
sionally gave vent to her excitement by whirling round 
in circles and beating the air with her hands. Pierre 
knew this peculiarity, and when he came to the door 
and heard the tempest within, he offered himself at once 
as a kind of breaker for the storm to beat against. But 
Reinette did not need him. The battle was nearly over, 
for at its height, when it seemed to her that she could 
not lose one grain of ! aspect for her father for having 
thus deceived her — could not exchange the ideal friends 
of her mother for these people so different from herself, 
there came suddenly before her mind a fair, handsome 
face, with eyes as tender and pitiful as those of a woman, 
and yet with something str:ng and masterful in their 
expression as they smiled a welcome upon her. 


THE TWO REINE2 TES. 


93 


It was when she was most bewildered and con- 
founded by the unknown relations claiming her that 
somebody had said, “ This is another cousin but in her 
excitement she had scarcely heeded it, and made no 
response when the young man’s hat was lifted politely 
by way of a greeting. 

It was the same young man, she was sure, who had 
held her back from the open grave, and spoken to her 
in a voice which she recognized at once as belonging to 
her class. Reinette laid great stress upon the human 
voice, insisting that by it she could tell how much of 
real culture or natural, inborn refinement its owner pos- 
sessed. The sharp, loud voices of the Fergusons, with 
their peculiar intonation, had grated upon her nerves, 
but the well-modulated, well-trained tones of the young 
man had fallen on her ear like a strain of music among 
jarring discords. 

Who was he.? Not the brother, surely, of that tall 
blonde with the yellow plume and long lace scarf. That 
was impossible; and yet some one had said, “Here is 
another cousin,’’ and he had acknowledged it with a 
smile, which came to her now like sunshine breaking 
through a rift of clouds and clearing up the sky. 

“Oh ! if he only were my cousin, I could bear it so 
so much better,’’ she thought, just as Pierre came in, 
offering himself as a victim, provided she spared his hair, 
of which he had so little. 

The whole thing was so unexpected and droll that it 
quieted Reinette at once, and, sitting down in a chair, 
she laughed and cried alternately for a moment ; then 
dashing her tears away and taking the kittens upon her 
lap, she bade the old man sit down beside her, as there 
was something she wished to ask him. 

“ Pierre,” she began, “ it was right nice in you to 
offer yourself a victim to my fury ; and, had you come 
sooner, I might have shaken you a little, for when I’m 
fighting with my other self I always like to feel some- 


94 


THE TWO REINETTES. 


thing in my power — something which stands for that 
other girl I’m trying to conquer, and I was hall tempted 
to take one of these little kittens and wreak my temper 
on that, but I didn’t, and I am glad, and I am going to 
govern myself hereafter, for I must be a woman now 
and not a child.” 

Yes, miss, that’s very good,” Pierre said, wondering 
how he should like his little mistress if she were always 
as mild and gentle as she seemed now, without any fire 
or spirit at all. 

“ Pierre,” Reinette continued, “ how long have you 
lived with us ?” 

“ Fourteen years come Christmas.” 

“ I thought so ; and did you know papa before you 
came to us ?” she asked, and he replied : 

“ No, miss : only as I had heard of him as the rich 
American, who lived so extravagantly at the Hotel 
Meurice, and had such a handsome chateau in the 
country.” 

“ Yes, Chateau des Fleurs. It was lovely, and I was 
so happy there. Then, of course, you never saw my 
mother.” 

“Never,” said Pierre, and Reinette continued : 

“ And did you never hear anything of her from strang- 
ers ? Did you never hear where she came from, where 
papa found her ? 

“ I heard from you that she was very beautiful and 
good, and died at Rome when you were born, and I think 
you told me she was English. Surely you would know 
about your own mother and Pierre looked curiously 
at his young mistress, who colored painfully and beat the 
matting with her boot. 

Reinette was hesitating as to how much she would 
tell Pierre, for it hurt her to confess to any one how 
little she really knew of her mother’s antecedents, so 
wholly silent and non-committal had her fat’'er been on 


THE TWO REINETTES. 


95 

the subject. At last, deciding that she must be frank with 
Pierre if she wished him to be so with her, she said : 

1 “ Pierre, you are all I have left of the life in France, 

and I must tell you everything. There was always 
a mystery about mamma which I could not solve, and all 
I know of her was her name, Margaret Ferguson, and 
that papa loved her so much that he could not bear to 
talk of her, and all I know besides the name I guessed, 
and now I am afraid I did not guess right. I have never 
met anybody who had seen her but papa, except the nurse 
Christine Bodine, who was with her when she di-^d, and 
who brought me to Paris. She, too, left me when I was 
a year or so old, and I have not seen her since, and it 
made father very angry if I ever spoke of her. She was 
not a nice woman, he said, and he did not wish me to men- 
tion her name. Do you know anything of her.?” 

“What was the name, please?” Pierre asked, and 
Reinette replied : 

“ Christine Bodine, and if living now she must be forty 
or more. Mother would be forty-three.” 

“ I don’t know where she is, and I never saw her,” 
said Pierre, “ but the name brings something to my mind. 
Years ago, a doze'n or more, when we were staying at 
Chateau des Fleurs, I went with monsieur to Paris — to 
the office of Monsieur Polignie, a kind of broker or 
money-agent in town, and your father gave him a note 
or check of 1250 francs to be sent to Mademoiselle 
Christine Bodine. I remember the name perfectly, Chris- 
tine Bodine, because it rhymed, and I said it to myself two 
or three times, but who she was or where she lived I didn’t 
know ; only master’s face was very dark, and he was silent 
and gloomy all day, and I thought maybe Mademoiselle 
Bodine was some woman to whom he had to pay money, 
whether he liked it or not. You know many fine gentle- 
men in Paris do that.” 

He saw that she did not understand h‘m, and though 
fee might have told her that her father had lot always 


THE TWO REINETTES, 


96 

been the spotless man which she believed h. into be, 
he would not do it, preferring that she should be happy 
in her ignorance. 

“I remember that day so well,” he continued, “your 
father bought you a big wax doll in the Palais Royal, 
and although you were in bed when we returned to the 
chateau, he had you up to give it to you, and fondled and 
caressed you more than usual, as if making up for some- 
thing.” 

Reinette’s eyes were full of tears at these reminis- 
cences of Pierre’s, but she forced them back, and said : 

“ You have no idea where Christine is now ?” 

“ None whatever, but I think monsieur heard from 
her or of her when we were in Liverpool waiting to sail. 
You remember that several letters were forwarded to him, 
and one excited him very much. I was in the room when 
he read it, and heard him say something in English 
W'hich I think was a swear^ and I know he said something 
angry about Christine, for I understood that plain. He 
was very white and weak all day, and that night asked 
you if you would feel very badly to turn back to Paris 
and not go to America after all. You remember it, don’t 
you ?” 

Reinette did remember it, though at the time she had 
laid little or no stress upon it, thinking it a mere idle 
remark, as her father was naturally changeable. Now 
she could recall how sick and sad he had looked, and how 
much he had talked of France and she could see, or 
thought she could, that had she been willing, he would 
have gone back so gladly. 

Surely there could have been nothing in a letter from 
Christine, which should make him angry or wish to go 
back. Pierre did not understand English well ; it was 
easy for him to blunder, though he had not done so in 
the name “Christine Bodine ” to whom her father had 
sent money. Why fad he done so, and where was Chris- 
tine riov7 ? 


THE TWO REINETTES. 


97 


Turning to Pierre, she said : 

“ This money agent, Polignie, is still in Paris T' 

“ Yes, miss, I think so.” 

And you know his address ?” 

‘‘ I know where we went that day your father paid 
the money, but he may have moved since many times,” 
^'No matter. He must be well known : a letter will 
find him, and I shall write and ask for Christine Bodine, 
for I mean to find her if I cross the ocean to do it. She 
knew mother, and I must know something of her too, 
for — oh, Pierre, my brain is all in a whirl with what has 
happened to-day ; but I can’t tell you in here, I feel so 
smothered when I think of it. Let’s go to that ledge of 
rocks yonder on the hill-side. We must see the sun set 
from there, and maybe we can see poor papa’s grave.” 

She put on her hat and preceded Pierre down the 
stairs and through the dining-room, where she found 
Mrs. Jerry arranging a very dainty-looking tea-table. 

“Supper will be ready very soon,” Mrs. Jerry said, 
suggesting that her young mistress wait till it was served, 
as the muffins would all be cold. But Reinette was not 
hungry, she said, and Mrs. Jerry must eat the muffins 
herself. By and by she would perhaps have some toast 
and tea in her room ; she would tell Mrs. Jerry when 
she wanted it, and she flashed upon the woman a smile 
so sweet and winning that it disarmed her at once of the 
resentment she might otherwise have felt because her 
nice supper was slighted and she must keep up the 
kitchen fire in order to have toast and tea whenever it 
should suit the young lady’s fancy. 

Meanwhile Reinette went on her way, through the 
; back yard toward the ledge of rocks, when suddenly she 
i heard a pitiful whine, and, turning, saw the dog tugging 
! at his chain to get away. In an instant she was at his 
i side, with her arms round his neck, Avhile she cried : 

“Look, Pierre, what a noble fellow he is ! Why do 
they keep him tied up ? I mean to set him free.” 

5 

4 

I 


98 


THE TWO jREINETTES. 


And she was about to do so, when the coachman, who 
was watching her at a little distance, called out : 

Miss Hetherton, you must not do that He is 
strange here, and will run home. He has done so twice 
already.” 

Who are you ?” Reinette asked, rather haughtily, 
and he replied : 

“ I am Stevens, and take care of the horses. Maybe 
you would like to see them ; they are real beauties.” 

“Yes, when I unchain the dog,” Reinette replied. 
“ He’ll not run from me ; I can tame him. What’s his 
name ? 

“ King,” said Stevens ; and taking the dog’s face 
between her hands, and looking straight, into his eyes, 
Reinette said : 

“ Mr. Doggie, you are my king, and I am your queen. 
You must not run away from me. I’ll take such good 
care of you, and love you so much ; and in proof thereof 
I give you your liberty.” 

She slipped the chain from his neck, and, with a joy- 
ful bark. King sprang upon her, licking her face and 
hands in token of his grateful allegiance. Every brute 
recognized a friend in Reinette, and King was not an 
exception, and kept close to her side as she went toward 
the stables to see the horses, which Stevens led out for 
her inspection. 

First, the splendid bays, Jupiter and Juno, with 
which she could find no fault, unless it were that Juno 
carried her head a trifle higher than Jupiter, and might 
be freer in the harness. She could not quite decide 
until she saw them on the road, she said ; and then she 
turned to the milk-white steed, her saddle pony, with 
which she was perfectly delighted ; she was so white 
and clean, and tall and gentle, and ate grass from her 
hand, and followed her about as readily as King himself. 

* What’s her name ?” she asked. 

i. 


ON THE ROCKS, 99 

And on Stevens replying that he did not know, she 
B8id : 

“ Then she shall be Margery, after the dearest friend 
1 ever had except papa. She was so fair, and beautiful, 
and tall, and I loved her so much. Oh, Margery !” she 
continued, laying her hand upon the neck of her steed ; 
“ where are you now, and do you know how sad and 
lonely your little Queenie is ?” 

There was a shadow on Reinette’s bright face, but it 
quickly passed away ; and sending the horses back to 
their stalls, she went, with Pierre and King, toward the 
ledge of rocks on the grassy hill-side. 


CHAPTER XI. 

ON THE ROCKS. 

was very pleasant on the ledge ol xocks, with 
the soft, rose-tinted glow of the summer sun- 
set in the western sky, and the long line of 
wooded hills and grassy meadows stretching 
away to north, and south, and east, as far as the eye 
could reach. Through a deep cut to tl e westw-ird a 
train of cars was coming swiftly into view, while ever 
the tops of the pine trees, to the east, wreathe of smoke 
were curling, heralding the approach of another train, 
for Merrivale was on the great thoroughfare between 
Boston and Albany. At the foot of the hill the waters 
of Lake Petit lay like a bit of silvery moonlight amid 
the green fields around it, while further to the left 
another lake or pond was seen, with the Chicopee 
winding its slow course through strips of meadow land 
and green pastures, where the cows fed ihrough the day 

L OF C. 



lOO 


ON THE ROCKS. 


and from which there now came a faint tinkle of bells, 
as they were driven slowly home. Everything was quiet, 
and calm, and peaceful, and Reinette felt quiet and 
peaceful, toe, she seated herself in the “ Lady’s Chair ” 
and scanned the k^^vely landscape spread out below her. 

“America is beautiful,” she said to Pierre, who stood 
Rt her side ; “and I should be so happy in papa’s old 
home, if only he were here. And I mean to be happy, 
as it is, for I know he would wish it to be so, and I under- 
stand now what he meant when he said such strange 
things to me just before he died. He was preparing me 
for a surprise — a — a — Pierre — ” and forcing down a 
great sob, Reinette began rapidly, “ Pier re, did you 
notice those people — those ladies, I mean, who came to 
meet me at the station ?” 

“Yes,” said Pierre; “they rode with you to the 
grave. I thought, maybe, they were the servants of the 
house : who were they, mademoiselle?” 

“ Servants,” and the dark eyes flashed angrily, for if 
they were hers — her flesh and blood — nobody must speak 
against them. “ Servants ! Pierre, you are an idiot !” 

“ Yes, mademoiselle,” the old man answered, humbly, 
and Reinette continued : 

“ You don’t yet understand how different everything 
is in America. There is no nobility here — no aristocracy 
like what we have in Europe. Your son, if you had one 
born here, might be the President, for all of his birth. 
Ifs worth and education which make nobility here, with, 
perhaps, a little bit of money, and, Pierre, those ladies 
— mind you, ladies — whom you thought servants, were 
my own grandmother, and aunt, and cousin, my mother’s 
relatives.” 

Mon Dieu r* dropped involuntarily from the old 
man’s lips, as he looked searchingly at his mistress for 
an Instant, and then dropped his eyes meekly as he met 
her threatening gaze. 

“ Ycv,. I do not quite know how it is, or why papa 


ON THE ROCKS, 


loi 


jiever told me of them ; some family quarrel most like- 
ly,” Reinette continued. “ He tried to tell me when he 
was dying. He said there was something he must ex- 
plain ; something he ought to have told me, and this was 
it. My mother was American and not English, as I sup- 
posed, and these are her relatives and mine, and it’s nice 
to lind friends where one did not expect them.” 

“Yes, mademoiselle, very nice,” Pierre said with a 
nod of assent, though, knowing the proud little lady as 
he did, he knew perfectly well how hotly she was rebel- 
ling against these new friends, and how it was her great 
pride which prompted her to exalt them in his estima- 
tion if possible. 

But it was not for him to express any opinion, so he 
remained silent, while Reinette went on : 

“ Mother’s own blood relations, who can tell me all 
about her, though I mean to find Christine Bodine just 
the same, and hear what she has to say of mamma. 
Pierre, there was another cousin at the station — a young 
man, with such a fair, winning face and perfect 
manners. He was at the grave, too. You must have 
seen him. He was a gentleman, I am sure.” 

“ Yes, mademoiselle,” and Pierre brightened at once. 
“ He is quite the gentleman, the nobility, the aristocracy, 
like Monsieur Hetherton. He rode witn Monsieur 
Beresford and myself, and spoke to me in my own 
tongue ; not as you talk it, but fair, very fair, though he 
did not understand me so well.” 

Pierre was growing eloquent on the subject of Phil, 
and Reinette was greatly interested, and asked number- 
less questions concerning him. 

“ What was his name ? What did Mr. Beresford call 
him, and what did he say ?” 

“He asked much of you,” Pierre replied, “and once 
there wp.s something like tears in his eyes when I to d 
him how sad you were, but seems like he was ashamed 
to have the other one see him, for he pulled his hat dcs^^ a 


lO'^ 


ON THE ROCKS. 


over his eyes, and said something about it in English 
which made them both laugh, he and the other gentleman 
who called him Fill'' 

''‘Fill!" Reinette repeated. What a name. You 
could not have understood.” 

But Pierre insisted that he did ; it was Fill, and no- 
thing else ; and as at that moment Phil himself rode 
by, the old man pointed him oiit to Reinette just after 
he bow, which she did not see, and consequently could 
not return ; but she watched him as far as she could see 
him, admiring his figure, admiring his horse, and wonder- 
ing how it could be that he was so different from those 
other people, as she mentally designated the Fergusons, 
whom, try as she would, she could not accept willingly 
as her mother’s friends. If she could find Christine 
Bodine, she could solve all doubts on the subject ; and 
she meant to find her, if that were possible, and set her- 
self about it at once — to-morrow, perhaps, for there was 
no time to be lost. If Christine had, as Pierre believed, 
been a pensioner of her father’s, and if he had heard 
from her at Liverpool, then of course she was living, and 
through the Messrs. Polignie she could trace her, and 
perhaps bring her to America to live with her, as some- 
thing to keep fresh in mind her past life, now so com- 
pletely gone from her. 

Thus thinking, she walked back to the house just as 
it was growing dark, and Mrs. Jerry was beginning to 
feel some anxiety with regard to the tea and toast, and 
the time they would be called for. 

Reinette’s long fast, and the fatigue and excitement of 
the day were beginning to tell upon her, and after forc- 
ing herself to swallow a few mouthfuls of the food 
which the good woman pressed upon her, she announced 
her intention of retiring to her room. 

Mrs Jerry carried up the wax candles, which she 
lighted herself, and after setting them upon the table and 
seeing that everything was in order, she stood a moment. 


ON THE EOCKS, 


103 


smoothing the hem of her white apron, as if there was 
something she had to say. She had promised Grandma 
Ferguson to call Reinette’s attention to the patch-work 
spread, quilted “ herrin’-bone ” and which, as the work of 
a young girl, had taken the prize at the Southbridge Fair, 
but she did not quite know how to do it. “ Herrin’- 
bone" quilts did not seem to be in perfect accord with 
this little foreign girl, who, though so plainly dressed, 
and so friendly and gracious of manner, bore unmistak- 
able marks of the highest grade of aristocracy. Like the 
most of her class, Mrs. Jerry held such people in great 
esteem, and as something quite different from herself, 
whose father had worked side by side, many a day, in 
plaster and mortar, with honest John Ferguson, and she 
could not understand how one like Reinette Hetherton 
could care for a patch-work quilt, even if her mother had 
pieced it in years gone by. But she had promised, and 
must keep her word, and laying her hands upon it, and 
pulling it more distinctly into view, she began : 

“ I promised your grandmother to tell you about this 
bed-quilt, which 'pears kind of out of place in here, but she 
sent it over — the old lady did — thinkin’ you'd be pleased 
to know that your mother did it when she was a little 
girl, and that many of them is pieces of her own gowmds 
she used to wear. I remember her myself with this one 
on ; it was her Sunday frock, and she looked so pretty in 
it;” and Mrs. Jerry touched a square of the blue and 
white checked calico which had once formed a part of 
Margaret Ferguson’s best dress. 

“ I don’t think I quite understand you,” said Reinette, 
who was wholly ignorant of that strange fashion of cut- 
ting cloth in bits for the sake of sewing them up again. 

But one idea was perfectly clear to her. Mrs. Jerry 
had seen her mother, and her great dark eyes were full 
of eager inquiry as she continued : 

You have seen mother ; you knew her when she was 
a little girl ; knew her for certain and true ?” 


104 


ON THE ROCKS. 


There was still a doubt — a rebeiung ii Reinette’: 
mind against the new relatives, but Mrs. Jerry knew no- 
thing of it, nor guessed that Reinette was not fully ac- 
quainted with all the particulars of her mother’s early 
life and marriage. 

“ Yes,” she answered, ‘‘Margaret Ferguson and I was 
about the same age ; mabby I am two years or so the 
oldest ; but we went to school together and was in the 
same class, only she was always at the head and 1 most- 
ly at the foot, and we picked huckleberries together 
many a time out in old General Hetherton’s lot, never 
dreaming that she would one day marry Mr. Fred. I 
beg your pardon, your father I meant,” she added hastily, 
as she met the proud flash of Reinette’s eyes, and under- 
stood that to speak of her father as Ered was an indigni- 
ty not to be tolerated. 

But for this slip of the tongue Reinette might have 
questioned her further of her mother, but she could not 
do it now, though she returned to the bedquilt and man- 
aged to get a tolerably clear comprehension with regard 
to it. “ Made every stitch of it and I warrant she pricked 
herself over it many a time,” Mrs. Jerry said, and being 
fairly launched on her subject she was going on rapidly 
when Reinette suddenly interrupted her with : 

“Yes, yes, I know : I see ; mother did it. Mother’s 
hands have touched it ; and now go away, please, quick, 
and leave me alone.” 

She pointed to the door, and Mrs. Jerry went swiftiy 
out, half frightened at the look in the young girl’s eyes 
as she bade her leave the room. 

“ It must be true ; everybody and everything confirms 
it, and I have lost my ideal mother,” Reinette whispered 
to herself as she closed the door after Mrs. Jerry. . 

Yes, she had lost her ideal mother, but the loss had 
net been without its gain, and Reinette felt that this was 
so is she knelt in her anguish by the bedside and laid 


ON THE ROCKS. 


105 


her hot, tear-stained cheek against the coarse fabric 
which had been her mother’s work. 

“ Mother’s dear hands have touched it,” she said 
“and that brings her so near to me that I almost feel as 
if she were here herself, “ Oh, mother, did your hands 
ever touch your baby, or did you die before you saw me 
Nobody ever told me. Why was father so silent, so 
proud? I would have loved these people for her sake, 
and I will love them now in time. But it is all so 
strange, and mother’s girlhood was so different from 
what I have fancied it to be.” 

Then, remembering what Mrs. Jerry had said of the 
bits of calico, she brought the candle close to the bed 
and examined the pieces carefully, especially the blue 
and white one in which Mrs. Jerry had said her mother 
had looked so prettily. It was delicate in color and in 
pattern, but to Reinette, who had never in her life worr 
anytliing coarser than the fine French cambrics, it seem- 
ed too common a fabric for the picture she held in 
her heart of her mother. It did not at all match the 
lovely pearls sh^ kept so sacredly among her treasures. 
Her trunks and boxes ha J been brought from the station, 
and in one of them were Lhe pearls. 

Unlocking the box, Reinette took out the exquisite 
necklace, bracelets, and ear-rings which her father told 
her her mother had worn to a ball, where she had been 
noted as the most beautiful woman present. 

Taking them now to the bedside, she laid them upon 
the squares of blue and tried to picture to herself the 
beautiful woman in creamy white satin who had worn 
them and the girl who had picked berries with Mrs. 
Jerry, and worn the dress of blue. 

“ Pearls and calico ! There is a great gulf between 
them,” she thought, “ but no greater than the distance 
between my old life and the new, which I must live 
Dravciy and well.” 

Then, returning the pearls to their casket, with a fee*' 
5 * 


ON THE ROCKS, 


io6 

ing that now she shoul j never wear them, she . ndressed 
herself rapidly, for her head was beginning to ache, and 
throwing herself upon ths bed drew the patch-work 
quilt over her, caressing X as if it had been a living 
thing, and whispering, softly : 

“ Dear mother, I do not love you one whit the less 
because you once picked berries in father’s fields and 
wore the cotton gown, and you seem near to me to- 
night, as if your arms were round me, and you were 
pitying your desolate little girl, who has nobody to pity 
her, nobody to love her, nobody to pray for her now, and 
she so wretched and bad.” 

Poor little Reinette was mistaken when she thought 
there was no one to pity or pray for her now, for across 
the river, over the hill, and under the poplar trees, a 
light was still burning in the chamber where Grandma 
Ferguson knelt, in her short night-gown and wide frilled 
cap, and prayed for Margaret’s child, that God would 
comfort her and have her in his keeping, while at the 
Knoll, Phil was thinking of the great sad eyes which, 
though they had flashed only one look at him, haunted 
nim persistently, they were so full of pathos and pain. 

“ Poor little girl,” he said, “alone in a new country, 
with such a lot of us whom she never heard of thrist 
jpon her. I pity her by J ^ve !” 


REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. loj 


CHAPTER XII. 

REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. 

EINETTE slept heavily that first night in her 
new home — so heavily, that the robins nad 
sung their first song, and the July sun had 
dried the dew-drops on the greensward and 
flowers before she awoke, with a very vague perception 
as to where she was, or what had happened to her. 
Through the window which she had left open came the 
warm summer air, sweet with the scent of clover and 
the newly-mown hay, which a farmer’s boy was turning 
briskly, not far from the house. And Reinette, who was 
keenly alive to eyerything fresh and beautiful, inhaled 
the delicious perfume and felt instinctively how much 
of freshness and beauty she was losing. But when she 
rose and, going to the window, threw back the shutters 
and looked for an instant at the lovely picture of the 
Merrivale hi'lls and valleys spread out before her, a 
sharp cutting pain across her forehead and in her eyes 
warned her that her old enemy, the nervous headache, 
was upon her in full force, and there was nothing for 
her that day but pain and suffering in the solitude 
of her room. Then, as she remembered what Mrs 
Ferguson had said of an early visit, for the sake ol 
talking over things,” she shuddered, and grew cold and 
faint, and thought, with that strange feeling of incredu- 
lity to which she clung : 

“ If I were only positive and sure, beyond a doubt 
that mother did once pick huckleberries with Mrs. 
Jerry, and wear the cotton gown, I could bear every- 
thing so much better. Mr. Beresford knows all abou*" 
it ; he will tell me, and I must see him first, for thosi 
people will not be long in coming to par their res- 



io8 REINETTE AND MR, BERESFORD, 


pects. ril send Pierre immediately with a note asking 
him to come to me as soon as possible.” 

What Reinette willed to do she did at once, and in 
spite of the blinding pain in her head, she opened her 
desk and wrote as follows ; 

“ Mr. Beresford : — I must see you. Come without 
delay. Miss Hetherton.” 

This done, she attempted to dress, but finding an 
elaborate toilet too much for her, she contented herself 
with a cool, white cambric wrapper, with rows of lace 
and embroidery down the front, and bows of delicate 
pink ribbon on the pockets and sleeves. Over this she 
threw a dainty Parisian jacket or sacque of the same hue, 
letting her dark wavy hair fall loosely down her back. 
She always wore it so when she had a headache, and she 
made a most beautiful and striking picture for Mrs. 
Jerry to contemplate when, in answ'er to her ring, that 
lady presented herself at the door to know what her 
mistress would have. Like most women, Mrs. Jerry 
had a hundred remedies for the headache, but Reinette 
wished for none of them. Nothing was of any avail un- 
til the pain ran its course, which it usually did in twenty- 
four hours, and all she asked was to be left in quiet in 
the library below, where she proposed going to wait for 
Mr. Beresford, whom Pierre found in his office and with 
him Phil Rossiter, the two talking together of the young 
lady at Hetherton Place and comparing their impres 
sions of her. 

“Not so very pretty, but bright and agreeable, with a 
will of her own,” Mr. Beresford said, guardedly, remem- 
bering what Phil had predicted with regard to the im- 
mediite surrender of his heart to the foreigner. 

“Yes, and proud as Lucifer, too, or I’m mistaken,” 
answered Phil. “Why, I really believe she means to 
ride over us all. Odd, though, that she’d never heard of 


REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. 109 

a soul of us. That snob of aHetheiton must have been a 
queer chap.” 

At this moment Pierre appeared in the door, be wing 
and gesticulating, and jabbering unintelligibly as he 
handed the note to Mr. Beresford, who read it aioiui, 
while Phil said laughingly, though in reality he secretly 
felt aggrieved ; 

“You see, it is you for whom she has sent. She does 
not care for me.” 

Strangely enough, notwithstanding his imperfect 
knowledge of English, Pierre understood the last part 
of Phil’s speech, and his gestures were more vehement 
than ever as he assured Phil that he was mistaken. Miss 
Reiiiette cared for him very much indeed, and had asked 
much about him, and noticed him at the grave, and when 
he went by on horseback. It was business alone which 
had prompted her to send for monsieur ; later she would 
be most happy to see young monsieur, her cousin. 

Phil could not follow the old man readily, but he 
thought he made out that Reinette had sent this message 
to him, or something like it, and he changed his mind 
about starting for Martha's Vineyard that afternoon, as 
he had half resolved to do. He would see Reinette first, 
and hear her speak to him face to face. 

“ Tell her I shall be there some time to-day,” he said 
to his more fortunate friend, the lawyer, who, nothing 
loth to meet the glance of Reinette’s bright eyes once 
more, was soon riding rapidly toward Hetherton Place. 

Reinette’s head was worse than it had been earliei in 
the morning, but she insisted upon seeing Mr. Beresford, 
who was admitted at once to the room, which Mrs. Jerry 
had made as dark as possible, but which was still ught 
enough for him to distinguish distinctly the little figure 
in pink and white, reclining in the easy-cl:air, with 
masses of long dark hair rippling down its back, and a 
wet napkin upon the forehead, partially concealing the 
eyes, w.’iich nevertheless, flashed a welcome upen him 


no REINETTE AND MR, BERESFORD, 


as he came in, feeling a little abashed in the pres- 
ence of this foreign girl in her pretty dishabille, with 
her loose wide sleeves showing her round, white arms 
io her elbows, and her litde high-heeled pink-rosetted 
dippers resting on the footstool. She, on the contrary, 
^vas as composed and unconscious as if he had been a 
block of wood, instead of a man, with all a man’s impulse 
to worship and admire. 

“ Oh, Mr. Beresford,” she began, offering him one wet 
hand, while with the other she took the napkin from her 
head, and, dipping it in the bowl of water on the stand 
beside her, wrung it lightly and replaced it on her fore- 
head, letting a little of the fringe hang over her eyes 
while drops of water ran down her face and fell from 
the end of her nose. “ Oh, Mr. Beresford, it was so 
kind in you to come so soon when you must have so 
much to do, but you see I could not wait, even, though I 
have this headache. Mrs. Jerry said it was hardly the 
thing to receive you in this way, but a girl with the head- 
ache cannot be expected to dress as for a dinner, and I 
can’t bear my hair bound up, though I might fix it a 
little,” and wdth a dexterous, quick movement, Reinette 
took the whole mass of wavy hair in her hand, and 
giving it a twist and a sweep backward, wet the napkin 
again, and spatting it down on her forehead, went on : 

I must see you this morning, because father said I 
W’as to ask you every thing — trust you with everything — 
and 1 want to know — I want you to tell me — those peo — 
those ladies — my grandmother said she was coming to- 
day to talk over matters, and how can I talk if I don’t 
know w^hat to say ?” 

Mr. Beresford was sure he didn’t know, and she 
continued : 

“ It may seem strange to you, who did not know 
father intimately, to knew how little he talked of his af- 
fairs to any one. Even with regard to mother, le was 
/ery reticent, and never told me anything, except that 


REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. iii 


she died in Rome, when I was born, and that her name 
was Margaret Ferguson. I always thought she 
was English, and built many castles about her and her 
relatives, and so, you see, I was a little surprised yester- 
day when they claimed me — such a number of them, it 
seemed. Were there many ?” 

“ Only three,” Mr. Beresford replied, knowing that 
she had no reference to Phil when she talked of “ tkost 
people'' 

“Yes, three,” she continued, “and I fear I was not as 
gracious as I might have been, for I was so astonished tc 
be claimed when I did not know for sure that I had a 
relative in the world. Mr. Beresford, would you mind 
telling me all you know about my mother ? Did she 
ever live in Merrivale ? Did father find her here ? Did 
she pick huckleberries with Mrs. Jerry, and cut up bits 
of calico for the sake of sewing them together again ?” 

The napkin wen; into the water with a great splash, and 
then back to her forehead as she said this, but her eyes 
were fixed on Mr. Beresford, who, not knowing what she 
meant by the bits of calico, said he did not, but continued, 
laughingly : 

“I dare say she did pick berries ; for almost every girl 
born in Merrivale does so at some period of her life.” 

“ Then she was born here, and you have seen her, and 
there is no mistake, and these people, they are — they are 
my grandmother ?” 

This was the second time Reinette had put her ques- 
tions in this form, and this time Mr. Beresford laughed 
heartily, as he replied : 

“Yes, they are your grandmother decidedly ; but,” he 
added, more quietly, “ it is strange your father never 
told you.” 

“ Not strange at all if you knew him,” Reinette said, 
resolved that no blame should attach to her father. 
“ But tell me,“ she went on, “tell me all about it — the 
marriage, I mean, and who are the Fergusons. — nice 


112 REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. 


people, of course, or my mother would not have been 
one. Who are they, Mr. Beresford ?” 

The lawyer could not look that proud, high-bred 
girl in the face and tell her of Peggy Ferguson’s beer- 
shop under the elms, of the Martins, or of the wonder 
and surprise when Fred Hetherton made Margaret Fer- 
guson his wife. But he dwelt upon the honesty and 
respectability of John Ferguson, and the great beauty of 
his daughter Margaret, whose loveliness had attracted 
the heir of the Hethertons. 

Reinette saw he was evading her questions, and with 
an impatient stamp of her little slipper, she said : 

“ Mr. Beresford, you are keeping things from me, 
and I will not bear it. If there is anything wrong 
about the Fergusons I wish to know it. Not that I shall 
turn against them,” she said, with a flash in her eyes 
which made her visitor wince. “ They are mother’s peo- 
ple, and if they are thieves and robbers I am a thief and 
robber, too. I see by your face that there something — 
that you don’t fancy these people of mine, but I tell you 
1 do. If they are 7nine they are inine^ and I won’t hear a 
word against them !” 

What a strange contradictory creature she was, one 
moment insisting that he must tell her something, if 
there was any thing to tell, and the next warning him 
that she would not listen to a word. What could he do 
but stare wonderingly at her, as, dropping the napkin 
into the bowl of water, she leaned back in her chair and 
holding him with her bright eyes, said, imperiously : 

I am waiting, go on ; father made a mesalliajice^ I 
suppose.” 

“ Yes, that’s about the fact of the case,” Mr. Beresford 
replied, feeling compelled to speak out. “ Your mother’s 
family did not stand as high socially as your fatiier’s, 
They were poor, while Mr. Hetherton, your grandfather, 
was 'rich, and that makes a difference, you know.” 

“ No. I didn’t,*” she replied. “ I thought nothing made 


REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD, 


”3 


a difiPerence in America, if you behaved yourself. But 
go on. How poor were they ? Did they beg ? What 
did they do ?” 

The look in her eyes brought the answer promptly: 

Your grandfather built chimneys and laid cellar 
walls." 

“ Well, that’s dirty, sticky, nasty work, but no dis- 
grace — people must have chimneys and cellar walls, and 
I’ve no doubt he built them well. What did she do-^ 
grandmother, I mean ? Was she a bar-maid?" 

She had almost hit it, but not quite, and Mr. Beres- 
ford replied : 

“ She sold gingerbread and beer ; kept a kind of 
baker’s shop." 

Reinette drew a quick, gasping breath, put the wet 
napkin again on her head without wringing it at all, and 
said : 

“ Yes, I see — I understand. They were unfortunate 
enough to be born poor ; they did what they could to 
get their living ; but that is nothing against them ; that is 
no reason why you should despise them. They are 
mine, and I won’t have it, I say." 

My dear Miss Hetherton," Mr. Beresford began, 
puzzled to know how to treat this capricious creature, 
what can you mean? I do not despise them." 

“ Yes, you do," she answered ; “ I see it in your face. 
I saw it there yesterday when they claimed me. But I 
won’t have it ; they are mine. Who was that young 
man with them ? Why don’t you tell me about him, and 
not of them all the time ? He is not a Ferguson, sure ?” 

No, Phil was not a Ferguson, and Mr. Beresford 
launched at once into praise of Phil, and the Rossiters 
generally, awelling at length upon therr handsome house 
at the Knoll, the high position they held in both town 
and country, the accomplishments of the young ladies, 
Ethel and Grace, the sweetness and dignity of Mrs. Ros 
siter, and, lastly, Phil hiir.self, the best-hearted, nos: 


ii4 REINETTE AND MR, BERESFORD. 


popular fellow in the world, with the most exquisite 
taste in everything, as was sfiown m what he had done 
to make Hetherton Place attractive. 

It was strange how Reinette's whole attitude and ex- 
pression changed as she listened. The Rossiters were 
more to her liking than the Fergusons, and she be- 
came as soft and gentle as a purring kitten, forgetting 
in her interest to wipe the drops of water from her face, 
as the napkin made frequent journeys to the bowl and 
back. 

Mr. Beresford felt that he deserved a great deal of 
credit for thus extolling Phil, feeling, as he did, a 
horrible pang of jealousy when he saw the bright, eager 
face flush, and the dark eyes light up with pleasure and 
expectancy. 

“ And cousin Philip will call on me soon — to-day, I 
hope. 1 am so anxious to see him. It is so nice to have 
a real flesh and blood cousin, to whom I can talk more 
freely even than to you. Tell him, please, how I want 
to see him,’" she said ; and again a pang, like the cut of 
a knife, thrilled Mr. Beresford’s nerves, as he felt that his 
kingdom was slipping away. 

Reinette was growing tired, and as there was no 
necessity to prolong the interview longer, she gave a 
little wave of her hand toward the door, and said : 

“ Thank you, Mr. Beresford ; that is all I care to ask 
you now. You will, of course, continue to look after 
me as you did after papa until I am of age, and then I 
shall look after myself. Until then I wish you to see to 
everything, only stipulating that you let me have all the 
money I want, and I give you wa aing that I shall ask 
for a great deal. I mean to make this place the loveliest 
spot in the world. You accept, of course ? You will be 
my agent, or guardian, or whatever you choose to call it 
but you must let me do exactly as I please, or you v/ih 
find me troublesome.” 

She smiled up at him very brightly, while ne oowed 


REINETTE AND MR. BERESFORD. 115 


his acceptance, thinking to himself that he might some- 
times find it hard to deal with this spoilt girl who warned 
him so prettily, and yet so determinedly, that she must 
have her way. 

“ I will serve you to the best of my ability,” he said . 
“ and if I am to look after your interests it is necessary 
that I fully understand how much your father died 
possessed of, and where it is invested. I know, of course, 
about affairs in this country, but he must have had mon- 
ey, and perhaps lands, abroad. Do you know ? Did he 
have any box where he kept his papers ; and will you 
let me have that box as soon as possible ; not to-day, of 
course, but soon ?” 

For an instant Reinette looked at him fixedly, while 
the remembrance of what her father had said to her with 
regard to letters which might come to him flashed upon 
her, and with the instincts of a woman who scents danger 
there came to her mind the thought that if there were 
letters no one must read, there might be papers which 
no eye but hers must see. She would look them over 
first before intrusting them to the care of any one, and if 
there were a secret in her father’s past life, only she 
weuld know it. 

“Yes,” she said at last, “there are papers — many of 
them — in a tin box, and when you come again I will 
give them to you. Father had houses in Paris, and 
Avignon, too, I think. Pierre knows more of that than 
I do. Ask him anything you please. But hush ! Isn’t 
that a carriage driving up to the door ? It may be 
cousin Philip. I hope so. I am quite sure of it ; and 
now go, please, and send Mrs. Jerry or Susan to me. I 
must do something wdth all this hair, or he’ll think me 
a guy and gathering her long, heavy hair in a mass 
she twisted it into a large flat coil which she fastened at 
the back of her head with a gold arrow taken- from her 
morning jacket. 

It was not very complimentary to Mr. Ber(*.''iorid to 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


iti6 

know that while she was willing to receive him en dis^ 
■habille^ as if he had been a block, the moment Phil came 
she was at once alive to all the proprieties of her 
personal appearance. Nor was it very gratifying to be 
thus summarily dismissed to make way for another, and 
that other tire fascinating, good-for-nothing Phil, whom 
every woman worshipped ; but there was no help for it. 
■and bidding good-morning to the little lady who was 
standing before the mirror with her back to him, fix- 
ing her hair, he went out in the hall to meet — not Phil, 
but Grandma Ferguson and Anna. They had entered 
without ringing, and as Mr. Beresford opened the door 
of the library grandma caught sight of Reinette, and 
went unannounced, into her presence. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THOSE PEOPLE. 

ITH a little start of surprise and disappoint 
ment, Reinette recognized her visitors, anc 
for an instant her annoyance showed itself 
upon her face, and then she recovered herself, 
and went forward to meet them with far more cordiality 
in her manner than she had envinced toward them the 
previous day. 

“ Good-morning, Rennet,” grandma began. “ I 
meant to have come earlier, so as to have a good long 
visit before noon, for I sha’n’t stay to dinner to-day. We 
are going to have green peas from my own garden, and 
they’d spile if kept till to-morrow. Oh, my sakes, how 
hot 1 am ! ” and settling herself in the chair Reinette had 
vacated, the good lady untied her bonnet-strings, took ofl 
iher purple gloves, and fanned herself rapidly with the 



THOSE PEOPLE, 


117 


huge pal m-ieaf she carried. “Please open one of them 
blinds,” she continued ; “ it‘s darker than a pocket nerc. 
and I want to see Margaret’s girl by daylight.” 

Reinette complied with her request, and then for the 
first time Mrs. Ferguson noticed the bowl of water, and 
the dark rings about Reinette’s eyes. 

“Why, what’s the matter?” she asked. “Got the 
headache ? Oh, I’m so sorry. You take it from your 
mother. She never could go nowhere, without coinin’ 
home with sick headache. ’Twas her bile that was out 
of kilter, and you look bilious. Better take some blue 
mass, or else sulphur and molasses, and drink horehound 
tea. That’ll cleanse your blood.” 

As she listened Reinette began to grow rebellious 
again, and she could have screamed with disgust at what 
she knew was well meant, but what seemed to her the 
height of vulgarity. Sinking into a chair, with her back 
to the window, and her visitors in front where she could 
sec them distinctly, she scanned them closely ; but said 
very little to them. 

“ She evidently cares nothing for us,” Anna thought, 
and she was beginning to feel angry and resentful, 
when Mrs. Jerry looked in, and seeing Mrs, Ferguson 
exclaimed : 

“Just the one I wanted. I’m making some currant 
jam, and wish you’d come to the kitchen a minute.” 

Mrs. Ferguson went out at once, and, left to them- 
selves, the two girls began to talk, Reinette asking num- 
berless questions by the way of drawing her cousin out 
and judging what she was. It did not take long for her 
to learn that Anna had been for three quarters to a young 
ladies' seminary in Worcester, that she had studied 
algebra, goemetry, astronomy, chemistry, physiology, 
botany, rhetoric, zoology, English literature, German and 
French ; she had dabbled a little in water-colors, had 
taken lessons on the piano, and someti nes played the. 
melodeon in Sunday school. 


THOSE PEOPLE, 


ii8 

*^Dear me,” said Reinette, drawing alongbreath , 
“ iiow learned you must be. I have never studied half 
those things. I hate mathematics, and rhetoric, and 
geology, and literature, and you are posted in them all. 
But tell me, now you are through school, what do you 
do? Merrivaie is a small place; there cannot be much 
to occupy one outside. What do you do all day, when 
it rains, for instance, and you can’t go out ? and when 
you first came from school ; time must have hung heavily 
then.” 

Reinette had no particular object in asking so many 
questions ; she only wished to make talk, and she had 
no suspicion of the effect hec words had upon Anna, wlio 
turned scarlet, and hesitated a moment ; then, thinking 
to herself, •' It don’t matter ; I may as well spit it out,” 
she said : 

“ Reinette, you will know some time how I live, 
and so I’ll tell you myself, and let you judge whether my 
life is a happy one. You know of course that we are 
poor. I don’t mean that we have not enough to eat and 
wear, but we workiox a living, and that in America makes 
quite as much difference as it does in Europe. Father 
keeps a small grocery and mother is a dressmaker and, 
talk as you please of the nobility of labor, and that ‘a 
a man’s a man for a’ that,’ the man must have money and 
the woman, too ; and there are lots of girls in town no 
better than I am, with not half as good an education, 
who look down upon me because my mother makes their 
dresses, and and I help her sometimes. You ask what I 
did when I first came from school. I’ll tell you. 
Mother was very busy, for there was a grand wedding in 
progress to which I was not bidden, but I had to work on 
the dresses, and take some of them home, and \/hen I 
rang the front door bell at Sue Granger’s, I was told by 
an impudent house-maid to step round to the side door 
as her lady had vistors in the parlor, and it was no place 
to receive parcels. I tell you I was mad, and I’ve never 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


119 

carried a budget since, ?ad never will; and I shall be so 
glad if we ever get out of the business, for I hate it, and 
I am just as good as Sue Granger, whose mother they say 
once worked in a cotton mill. Thank goodness, I am not 
as low as that. There’s good biood in my veins, too, if I 
am poor. The Rices (mother was a Rice) are highly con- 
nected with some of the best families in the State. 
Governor Rice is a distant relative of mine, and the Fer- 
gusons are well enough.” 

Here Anna paused to take breath, and Reinette, who 
had listened to her wonderingly, said : 

“And do your cousins, Ethel and Grace, share your 
opinions 

“ Of course not. Why should they ? Aren’t they big 
bugs, Colonel Rossiter’s daughters ? Don’t they go 
to Saratoga, and Newport, and Florida, and the sea-side, 
and have a maid, and drive their carriage, and live in a 
big house ? Such people can never understand why 
girls like me feel as I do. Ethel and Grace laugh at me, 
and say I am just as good as they are; and so I am, though 
the world don’t think so. Their mother used to stitch 
shoes for the shop when a girl, and sell gingerbread 
across the counter sometimes, just as your mother did. 
You knov/, perhaps, that Grandma Ferguson kept a 
kind ot baker’s shop.” 

Reinette flushed to the roots of her hair as she replied ; 

“Yes, I know, but I supposed one’s respectability 
depended upon himself — his conduct, I mean, rather 
than what he does for a living — if the business is honest 
and justifiable.” 

“There’s where you are grandly mistaken,” said 
Anna. One’s position depends upon how much money 
he has/. or how many influential friends. Is my Aunt 
Mary any better than when she stitched shoes and sold 
gingerbread? Of course not. She’s John Ferguson’s 
daughter just the same ; but she’s rich now. She is 
Mrs. Colonel Rossiter, and looked up to, and admired, 


t 


I2<0 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


and run after by the whole town, while ma and I are 
just tolerated because of our relationship to her. ‘Who 
is that stylish-looking girl ? 'I once heard a stranger 
say to Sue Granger, who replied : ‘ That’s Anna Fergu- 
^n ; her mother is a dressmaker,’ and that settled it. 
The stranger — a stuck-up piece from Boston — cared 
nothing for a girl whose mother made dresses for a 
living. Sometimes I get so mad I hate everything and 
everybody.” 

Here Anna stopped a moment, and Reinette scanned 
her very closely from her head to her feet, deciding, 
mentally that she was good-looking, and had about 
her a certain style which strangers would naturally re- 
mark, even though it was rather fast than refined. But 
she was not a lady, either by nature or education, and 
Reinette, who, in somethings was far-seeing for her years, 
saw readily the difficulty under .which her cousin labored. 
She was not naturally refined, but on the contrary, 
vuglar and suspicious, and jealous of those who occupied 
a position above her ; and while she took pains with her 
person, and affected a certain haughtiness of manner, 
her language was decidedly second-class and frequently 
interlarded with slang and harsh denunciations of the 
very people whose favor she wished to gain. 

While Reinette was thinking all this, Anna began 
again: 

“ I wish mother would sell out and take that odious 
sign from our front window ; we can live without dress- 
making, but I’ve given it up. She had a chance a few 
weeks ago. A Frenchwoman from Martha’s Vineyard 
wrote, asking her terms, which she put so high that Miss 
Ijia Rue declined, and so that fell through.” 

“What did you call the woman?” Reinette asked, 
rousing up suddenly from her reclining posture and 
looking earnestly at Anna, who replied : 

“ Miss Margery La Rue, from Martha’s Vineyard. 
She has done some work, I believe for my cousins, who 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


131 


think highly of her, and suggested her buying out ma’s 
business. Why, how excited you seem ! Do you know 
her ?” she asked, as Reinette sprang up quickly, her 
cheeks flushing, her eyes sparkling, and her whole ap- 
pearance indicative of pleasurable surprise. 

“Margery La Rue,” she repeated. “The name is 
the same, and she is French, too, you say, but it can- 
not be my Margery, for the last I heard from her she 
was in Nice, and talked of going to Rome, but it is sin- 
gular that there should be two dressmakers of the same 
name. What do you know of her? Is she old or 
young ?” 

“ I know nothing except the name,” Anna said, 
astonished at her cousin’s interest in and evident liking 
for a mere dressmaker. “ Is your Miss La Rue young, 
and was she your friend ?” she asked, and Reinette re- 
plied : 

“Yes, she was my friend — the dearest I ever had, 
and the only one, I may say, except papa, and she is 
beautiful, too ; she has the loveliest face I ever saw — 
sweet and spirituelle as one of Murillo’s Madonnas, 
with soft blue eyes, and sunny hair.” 

“ But how came you so intimate with her, and she 
only a dressmaker ?” Anna asked. 

“ It is too long a story to tell you now,” Reinette 
replied. “ 1 have known her since I was a child. I never 
thought anything about her being a dressmaker. She is 
educated, and refined, and good, and true, wTh not a 
single low instinct in her nature, and that, I think, is 
what constitutes a ladjA rather than money cr what one 
does for a living.” 

Anna shrugged her shoulders incredulously. In her 
own estimation she was refined and educated, and yet she 
was not recognized as a lady by those to whose notice 
she aspired ; but she made no reply, and Reinette con- 
tinued ; 

“ I shall take steps at once to ascertain if this Miss La 


122 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


Rue you speak of is my Margery, and if she is, and it if 
merely a matter of money which keeps her from accept* 
iiig your mother’s offer, I think I can make two people 
happy ; you first, if taking that sign from your window 
will do it, and myself, by bringing her here where I can 
see her every day, if I wish to/’ 

Before Anna could reply. Grandma Ferguson came 
in, puffing with exercise, and apologizing for her long 
absence. 

“I didn’t mean to be gone more’n a minit,” she said, 
“but Mrs. Jerry offered to show me all over the house, 
and I kinder v,ranted to see it, as it’s my fust chance. 
The last, and I may say the only' time I was ever here, 
I was turned out o’ door afore I could look about me.” 

“Turned out of doors ! For what, and by whom?” 
Reinette asked, in astonishment, and grandma re- 
plied : 

“Turned out by' your Granther Hetherton, because 
I came over to tell him his son Fred had run off w'ith 
your mother. Why, Rennet, child, what’s the matter! 
you are white as a sheet,” she continued, as with a long 
gasp for breath Reinette clasped both hands to her 
forehead and leaned helplessly back in her chair. 

“ It’s nothing,” she said faintly, “ only the pain in my 
liead has come back again. What you told me was so 
dreadful — my mother ran off with my father ! What 
for? Why', were they not married at home? Was 
there any reason?” 

“Reason? No,” grandma returned. “There was a 
nice big room back of the shop, and if it was good 
enough for Paul Rossiter to be married in, and for your 
father to spark your mother in, as he did many a time, it 
was good enough for him to be married in. But no ; he 
was afeard, mabby, that he should have to notice some 
of us, who he thought no more on than so much dirt, 
and so he ran off with her to New York and got mar- 
ried, and then started for Europe, and I’ve never seen 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


her sence. But surely, Rennet you must have known 
something about it, though Anny here, and Phil too— 
that's Miss Rossiter’s son — will have it that you never 
heard of us till yesterday, and so never Knew who your 
mother was. Is that so ?” 

It was a direct question and hurt Reinette craelly 
suffering as she was both mentall)'- and physically. The 
wet napkin was again applied to her throbbing temples, 
and then, in a voicr^ full of anguish, and yet with some- 
thing defiant in its tone, she said rapidly, like one who 
wishes to have a disagreeable task ended : 

“ No, I did not know who my mother was; father 
never told me.” 

“That’s smart, but just like him,” grandma inter- 
posed ; but Reinette stopped her short, and said : 

“Hush, grandma ! I will not hear my father blamed 
for anything. He may have acted hastily and foolishly 
when he was young, but he vras the dearest and best of 
fathers to me. He did not talk much, ever, and never of 
his private affairs, and since I know — that — that — he ran 
away with my mother, I am not surprised that he did 
not tell me who she was or anything of her early life. 
He knew it would pain me, and so he let me think her 
an English woman, as I always did — 

“ Yes, but when you started for America a body would 
s’pose he would have told. He knew you’d have to see 
us then and know,” grandma said, and Reinette replied : 

“Yes, and he meant to tell me when we reached New 
York. He had a habit of putting off things, and he put 
that off, and when he was dying on the ship he tried to 
tell me so hard. I know now what he meant when he 
said: ‘ Wh,in it comes to you forgive me and love me just 
the same;’ and I do — I will — and I’ll stand by father 
through everything;” and Reinette’s eyes, where tiie great 
tears were standing, fairly blazed, as she defended her 
dead father; and her grandma cried, too, a little, but her 
animo&Uy toward tht; Hethertous was so great and this 


124 


THOSE PEOPLE, 


silence of her son-in law seemed so like a fresh insult* 
that she was ready to fira up in an instant, and when 
Reinette said to her, “ It is very painful forme to hear it, 
and still I wish you to tell me all I ought to know of 
mother and father both. Why did you say they ran away ? ” 
she began as far back as the first time her daughter 
Margaret handed Fred Hetherton a glass of beer across 
the counter, and in her own peculiar way, told the story 
of the courtship and marriage, ending with a graphic 
description of her call on Gen. Hetherton, who turned 
her from his house, and bade her never enter it again. 

“And I never have till to-day, “ she said, “ when I 
wouldn’t wonder if he’d stir in his coffin if he knew I 
was here, seein’ he felt so much above me. If I’d been a 
man, I b’lieve I'd a horse-whipped him, for there’s fight 
in my make-up. My two brothers, Jim and Will Martin, 
were the prize-fighters of the town, and could lick any 
two men single-handed. They are dead now, both on ’em 
— died in the war, fightin’ for their country, and I s’pose 
it’s better so than if they’d lived to do wus.’’ 

“Yes, oh, yes,’’ Reinette said, faintly, neither know- 
ing what she said or what she meant, knowing only that 
every nerve was quivering with excitement and pain, 
and that she felt half crazed and stunned with all she 
had heard of the father and mother she had held so high. 

Nothing had been omitted, and she knew all about 
the beer and the gingerbread her grandmother sold, — the 
shoes her mother closed, — the berries she had picked to 
buy the blue chintz gown — the pride of the Hethertons 
and the inexcusable silence of her father with regard to 
her mother’s death and her own existence. There was 
nothing more to tell, and Reinette could not have heard 
It. if there had been. Proud and high-spirited as she 
was, she felt completely crushed and humiliated, and as 
if she could never face the world again. And yet in 
what sh^ had heard there "vas nothing derogatory to her 
mother’s character, or her father's either for that matter. 


THOSE PEOPLE. 


I2S 

Only it was so different from what she had believed. 
By and by, when slie could reason more calmly, she 
would feel differently and see it from a different stand- 
point, but now she felt as if she should scream outright 
if her visitors staid another minute, and she was glad 
when, reminded by the twelve o’clock whistle of her 
green peas cooking at home, grandma arose to go. She 
had had no intentions of wounding Reinette, but she had 
no sensitiveness herself, no delicacy of feeling, no 
refinement, and could not understand how crushed, 
degraded, and her.rt-broken Reinette felt as she fled up 
the stairs to her own room, and throwing herself upon 
the bed sobbed and moaned in a paroxysm of grief and 
despair. 

“And these people 2irQ mine," she said ; “they belong 
to me, who was once so proud of my blood. Prize- 
fighters, and brewers, and bakers, and mercy knows 
what, in place of the dukes and duchesses I had pictured to 
myself! Why did father bring me here, when he ll^.d 
kept the knowledge of them from me so long, or at least 
why did he not tell me of them ? It is dreadful, and I 
hope I may never see one of them again." 

Just then her ear caught the sound of horse’s feet 
galloping into the yard, and starting up from her crouch- 
ing position among the pillows and pushing back her 
heavy hair from her forehead, Reinette listened intently, 
feeling intuitively that she knew who the rider was, and 
experiencing a thrill of joy when, a few moments later, 
Pierre brought her a card with the name of “ Phil 
Rossiter " engraved upon it. Taking the bit of paste- 
board in her hand she examined it critically, and 
pronouncing it au fait in every respect, announced Her 
intention of going down to meet her cousin. 

“But, mademoiselle, your dress, your hair ; monsieur 
is a gentleman,” Pierre said ; but Reinette ca^ed nothing 
for her dress then — nothing for her hair, which had 
again fallen over her shoulders. 


126 


REINETTE AND PHIZ. 


Gathering it up in masses at the back of her head, 
and letting a few tresses fall upon her neck, she wrapped 
her pink sacque a little more closely around her, and 
went hurriedly down to the library where Phil was 
waiting for her. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

REINETTE AND PHIL. 

was gotten up after the most approved man- 
ner of a young man of leisure and taste. 
From his short, cut-away coat to the tip of 
his boots everything was faultless, and his 
fair, handsome face impressed you with the idea that he 
was fresh from a perfumed bath, as, with his soft hat 
under his arm, he stood leaning on the mantel and 
looking curiously about the room. She^ in pink and 
white dishabille, a good deal tumbled and mussed, her 
hair just ready to fall down her back, her cheeks flushed 
and her eyelids swollen and red, showed plainly the 
wear and tear of the last few days. And still there was 
a great eagerness in her face, and her eyes were very 
bright as she stood an instant on the threshold looking 
intently at Phil, as if deciding what manner of man he 
was. Something in the expression of his face whicli 
won all hearts to trust him, won her as well, and when 
he stepped forward to meet her, she went swiftly to him, 
and laying her head upon his bosom as naturally as if 
be had been her brother, sobbed like a child. 

“ Oh, Philip, oh, cousin, I am so glad you have come at 
last,” she said. “ Why didn’t you come sooner, come 
first of all, before — ".hose — before my — Oh, I am so glad 
to see you and find you just like my father !” 

Phil did not quite know whether he felt complimented 



REINETTE AND FHIL, 


127 


or not to be likened to her father, but to say that ne was 
astonished faintly portrays his state of mind at the 
novel position in which he found himself. Although 
warm-hearted and affectionate he was not naturally very 
demonstrative, or if he were, that part of his nature had 
never been called into action, except by his grandmother. 
His sisters were very fond and proud of him, but they 
never caressed or petted him as some only brothers are 
petted, and only kissed him when parting with him, or 
after a long absence. As to the other girls of his 
acquaintance, his lips had never touched theirs since the 
days of his boyhood when he played the old-time games 
in the school-house on the common, nor had he held a 
girl’s hand in his except in the dance, and when assisting 
her to the carriage or her horse ; and here was this stran- 
ger, whom till yesterday he had never seen, sobbing in 
his arms, with his hands clasped in hers and her face bent 
over them so that he could feel the touch of her burning 
cheek, and the great tears as they wet his imprisoned 
fingers. And with that queer perversity of man’s nature 
Phil liked it, and drew her closer to him, and felt his 
own eyes moisten, and his voice tremble as he said gently 
and pityingly, as women are wont to speak ; 

“ Poor little Reinette, I am so sorry for you, for I 
know how you have suffered : and you have the headache, 
too, grandmother told me. She was here this morning. 
I hope you liked her. She is the kindest-hearted woman 
in the world.” 

“ Yes,” came faintly from the neighborhood of his 
hands, where Reinette's face was hidden for an instant 
longer ; then, freeing herself from him and stepping 
backward, she looked at him fixedly, until all the tears 
left her eyes, which twinkled mischievously as she burst 
into a merry laugh, and said: “No, I will be honest with 
you, Philip, and let you know just how bad I am. I 
didn’t like her ! Oh, I know you are horrified and hate 
me, and think me awful.” she continued, as she sank into 


REINETTE AND FIIIL, 


t j8 

‘* an easy-chair, and plunging the napkin into the bowl of 
water still standing there, spread it upon her head “ Bui 
you can’t understand how sudden it all is to UiC, who 
neve: knew I had a relative in America, unless it were 
some distant one on father’s side, and who, had I been told 
tliat I was first cousin to Queen Victoria, would not have 
been surprised, but rather have thought her majesty 
Honored by the connection, so proud was I of my fancied 
blood. And to be told all these — ” 

“What have you been told?” Phil asked, and she 
replied : 

“ Everything, I am sure, or if there is anything more 
I never wish to hear it. I know about the chimneys and 
the cellar walls, the gingerbread and the beer, and closing 
shoes, though what that is, I can’t even guess, and the 
runaway match, worse than all the rest unless it be those 
dreadful men who fought each other like beasts. What 
were their names? I cannot remember.” 

“You mean Uncle Tim and Uncle Will Martin,” Phil 
said, calling the men uncle for the first time in his life, 
although there was not a drop of their blood in his veins. 

But he would not hint that he was not as much a 
Martin as herself. 

“ You mean Uncle Tim and Uncle Will, grandmother’s 
brothers ; they were only great uncles, and liad the good 
taste to get killed in the war. They can’t hurt you.” 

“I know that, but something hurts me cruelly,” 
Reinette replied, clenching her hands together. “And 
you don’t know how much I hate it all — hate everybody 
— and want to fight and tear somebody’s hair ; that 
would relieve me, but it would not rid me of these 
dreadful people.” 

She looked like a little fury as she beat her hands in 
the air, and forgetting that they were strangers, Phil said 
to her : 

“Yo i surprise me, Reinette, by taking so strange a 
view of the matter. Can you not understand that in 


REINETTE AND PHIL. 


129 


America, where we boast of our democracy, there is no 
such commodity as blood, or if there is, it is so diluted 
and mixed that the original element is hard to'find. It 
does not matter so much who you are, or who your parents 
were, as it does what you are yourself. 

“ ‘ Honor and shame from no condition rise, 

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.’ 

“That used to be written for me in my copy-book a 
school, and I puzzled my brain over it to know what it 
meant, understanding at last that it was another version 
of that part of the church catechism which tells us to do 
our duty in that state of life to which God has called us." 

“ I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by talking 
poetry and catechism to me," Reinette said, tartly, and 
Phil replied : 

** I mean that you should look on the brighter side 
and not hate us all because we chance to be your relatives 
and not rebel so hotly and want to fight and tear some- 
body’s hair because, instead of being the granddaughter 
of a duchess, you prove to be the granddaughter of — of 
a Ferguson." 

“ Who calls me Rennet^ and talks such dreadful gram- 
mar, and wears purple gloves," interrupted Reinette, 
with a half-laugh in her eyes, where the great tears were 
shining. 

Phil smiled a little, for the purple gloves, into which 
Grandma Ferguson persisted in squeezing her coarse red 
hands, shocked his fastidious taste sorely, but he was 
bent upon defending her, and he replied : 

“Yes, I know all that; grandma is peculiar and 
old-fashioned, but she does not harm you, as Reinette 
Hetherton, one whit. She never had a chance to learn , 
circumstances have been against her. She had to work 
all her early life, and she did it well, and is one of the 
kindest old ladies in the world, and some day you will 
6 * 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


130 

appreciate her and think yourself fortunate have so 
good a grandmother, and you’ll get used to us all.” 

“ I never shall,” Reinette replied, “ never can get used 
to these people. You know I don’t mean you, for you 
are not like them, though I do think it very mean in 
you to stand there lecturing me so, when I wanted you 
to come to me so badly, and thought you would comfort 
me and smooth the trouble away, and instead of that 
you have done nothing but scold me ever since you’ve 
been here, and nobody ever dared to do that before but 
father, and you know how awfully my head is aching, 
and you’ve made it ten times worse. I am disappointed in 
you, Philip Rossiter ; and I meant to like you so much. 
But you don’t like me, I see it in your face, and you are 
a Ferguson, too, and I hate you — there !” 

As she talked Reinette half rose from her chair, and 
in her excitement upset the bowl of water, which went 
plashing over the floor. Then, sinking back into her 
seat, she began to cry piteously as Phil had never heard 
a girl cry before. Crossing swiftly to her side he knelt 
down before her, and taking her flushed, tear-stained 
face between both his hands, kissed her upon her fore- 
head and lips, while he tried to comfort her, assuring her 
that he was not scolding her, he was only defending his 
friends, that he was sorry for her, and did like her very 
much. 

“ Please forgive me, Reinette,” he said, “ and let us 
be friends, for I assure you I like you.” 

“ Then don’t call me Reinette,” she said. “ Father 
always called me Queenie, and so did Margery, and they 
are the only people I ever loved, or who ever loved me. 
Call me Queenie, if you love me, Philip.” 

“ Queenie, then, it is — for by Jove, I do love you ; and 
you must call me Phil, if you love me, and so we seal the 
compact,” the young man said, touching again the sweet, 
girlish lips, which this time kissed him back without the 
least hesitancy or token of consciousness. 


REINETTE AND PHIL. 


And so they made it up, these cousins who Lad quar- 
reled on the occasion of their first interview ; and Phi.^ 
picked up the bits of broken china and the napkin, and 
wiped up the water with his handkerchief, and told her 
he could cure her headache by rubbing, just as he often 
cured his mother’s. And Queenie, as he ever after call* 
ed her, grew as soft and gentle as a kitten, and, leaning 
her head upon the back of her chair, submitted to the 
rubbing and manipulations of her forehead until the 
pain actually ceased, for there was a wonderful mesmeric 
power in Phil’s hands, and he threw his whole soul into 
the task, and worked like a professional, talking learned- 
ly of negative and positive conditions, and feeling sorry 
when his cousin declared the pain gone, and asked him to 
throw open the blinds and let in the light, and then sit 
down where she could look at him. 

There was perfect harmony between them now, and 
for an hour or more they talked together, and Reinette 
told Phil everything she could think of with regard to 
her past life, and asked him numberless questions con- 
cerning his own family and the Fergusons generally. 

“ I am ashamed of myself,” she said, “and I am going 
to reform — going to cultivate the Fergusons, though I 
don’t believe I can ever do much with Anna. What ails 
her, Phil, to be so bitter against everybody ? Are they 
so very poor ?” 

“Not at all,” said Phil. “Uncle Tom — that’s her 
father — is a good, honest, hard-working man, odd as 
Dick’s hat-band, and something of a codger, who wears 
leather strings in his shoes, and never says his soul is his 
own in the presence of his wife and daughter ; but he is 
perfectly respectable, though he doesn’t go to church 
much on Sundays, and always calls my mother ‘ Miss 
Rossiter,’ though she’s his half-sister.” 

“ What ?” and Reinette looked up quickly. “Aren’t 
we own cousins, and isn’t your mother my own aunt?” 

“ No,” Phil answered reluctantly * then, thinking she 


132 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


would rather hear the truth from him than from any one 
else, he told her of his grandfather’s two wives, one of 
wiiom was his grandmother and one hers. 

“And so the Martins and the prize-fighters are not 
one bit yours ; they are all mine,” Reinette said, the 
tears rushing to her eyes again. 

“Nonsense, Queenie ; that doesn’t matter a bit. 
Remember what I told you ; blood does not count in 
this country. Nobody will think less of you because of 
those fighters, or fancy you want to knock him down.” 

“ But I feel sometimes as if I could ; that must be the 
Martin in me,” Reinette said, laughingly; and then 
she spoke again of Anna, who Phil said was too sensi- 
tive, and jealous, and ready to suspect a slight where 
none was intended. 

“ But once give her a chance,” he added, “ and she 
would ride over everybody’s head, and snub working 
people worse than she thinks she is snubbed because her 
mother makes dresses.” 

This allusion to dressmaking reminded Reinette cf 
what Anna had said with regard to Miss La Rue who had 
proposed buying her mother’s business, and she ques- 
tioned Phil of her, but he knew nothing, and Reinette 
continued : 

“ Oh, if it only were my Margery, I should be so happy. 
You don’t know how I love her ; she is so sweet, and 
good, and beautiful. I’ve known her since we were little 
girls at school together. It was a private English school 
in Paris, where I was a boarder, and she a day scholar at 
half rate, because they were poor. I never saw Mrs. La 
Rue but once or twice, and she is not at all like Mar- 
gery. She had been a hair-dresser at one time, I think. 
Oh, if this Miss La Rue should prove to be my friend ! 
When will you see her ? When are you going to the 
Vineyard ?” 

Phil could not tell. He had intended going at once, 
but since coming to Hetherton Place he had changed his 


REINETTE AND PHIL. 


*33 


ttiind, for there was something in this willful, capricious 
sparkling girl which attracted him more than all the 
gaieties of the Sea VieW House, and he said it was un 
certain when he should go to the Vineyard — probably 
not for two weeks or more. 

“ Oh, I am so sorry,” Reinette said frankly, “ for I do 
wane to know about Margery ; but then,” she added, 
with equal frankness, ” it is real nice to have you here, 
where I can see you every day. We must be great 
friends, Phil, and you must like me in all my moods ; 
like me when I want to tear your eyes out just the same 
as when I would tear mine out to serve you. Will you 
promise, Phil ?” 

“ Yes,” was his reply, as he took in his the hand she 
offered him, feeling strongly tempted to touch again the 
girlish lips which pouted so prettily as she looked up at 
him. 

One taste of those lips had intoxicated him as wine 
intoxicates the drunkard ; but there was a womanly 
dignity now in Reinette’s manner which kept him at a 
distance, while she went on to tell him of her good inten- 
tions. She was going to cultivate the Fergusons, especi- 
ally her grandmother, and she should commence by call- 
ing there that very afternoon, and Phil must go with her. 
She would order an early dinner, at half-past four, to 
vrhich Phil should stay, and then they would take a gal- 
lop together into town. 

“ You have nothing to do but to stay with me. Your 
business will not suffer?” she asked; and ^olori ig at 
this allusion to his business, Phil replied that it would 
mt suffer very much from an absence of half a day or so, 
and that he was at her disposal. 

“Then Pll interview Mrs. Jerry, and have dinner on 
the big piazza w’hich overlooks the river, and the 
meadows. That will make it seem some like Chateau 
des Fleurs, where we ate out doors half the time,” she 
said, as she disappeared from the room in quest of Mrs. 


‘34 


REINETTE AND PHIL. 


Jerry who heard with astonishment that dinner was 
be served upon the north piazza instead of in the dining- 
room. 

But a few hours’ experience had taught her that Misi 
Hetherton’s ways were not at all the ways to which she 
had been accustomed, and so she assented without a word, 
w'liile Reinette went next to her room and transformed 
herself from an invalid in a wrapper into a most stylish 
and elegant young lady. 

How lovely she was, in her dress of dark-blue silk 
with a Valenciennes sleeveless jacket, such as was then 
fashionable, her hair arranged in heavy curls, which were 
fastened at the back of her head with a scarlet ribbon, 
while a knot of the same ribbon was worn at her throat. 

Phil had thought her bewitching in her wrapper, with 
the wet napkin on her head, but when she tripped into 
the room in her new attire he started with surprise at 
the transformation. There was a bright flush on her 
cheeks, and her eyes shone like stars as they flashed smile 
after smile upon him, until he became so dazed and 
bewildered that he scarcely knew what he was doing. 
She had her sun-hat in her hand, and led him out into 
the grounds, where she told him of the improvements 
she meant to make, and asked what he thought of them. 

She should not change the general appearance of the 
house she said. She should only add one or two bay- 
windows and balconies, and enlarge the north piazza, as 
she wished the rooms to remain as they were when her 
father lived there, but the park was to undergo a great 
change, and be modeled, as far as possible, after the park 
at Chateau des Fleurs. There were to be winding 
walks, and terraces, and plateaus of flowers, and foun- 
tains, and statuary gleaming among the evergreens, and 
clumps of cedar trimmed and arranged into a labyrinth 
of little rooms, with seats and tables in them, and lamps 
suspended from the branches. But the crowning glorv 
of the whole was to be a rustic summer-house, large 


135 


REINETTE AND PHIL. 

enough to accommodate .hree or four sets of vlancers, 
when she gave an outdoor /<?/<?, and to seat at least forty 
people at a breakfast or dinner. Her ideas were on a 
most magnificent scale, and Phil listened to her breath- 
lessly till she had finished, and then asked if she had any 
idea how much this would cost. 

“ A heap of money, of course,” she said, arching hei 
eyebrows and nose a little, as she scented disapprobation ; 
“ but what of that ? Father had a great deal of money, 
I know, and never denied me anything. What is money 
for, except to spend and let other people have a good 
time ? I mean to fill the house with company, summer 
and winter, and make life one grand holiday for them, 
and you must stay here most of the time and help me 
see to things, or would that interfere too much with 
your business — your profession ?” 

This was the second time she had alluded to his 
business, and Phil’s cheeks were scarlet, and he was 
conscious of a feeiing of shame in the presence of this 
active, energetic girl, who took it for granted that he 
must have some business — some profession. He could 
not tell her that he had none, and had she pressed the 
point, would have fallen back upon that two months’ 
trial in Mr. Beresford’s law office, when he started to have 
a profession ; but fortunately for him the dinner was an- 
nounced, and they went together to the north piazza, 
where Reinette presided at one end of the table, and he 
at the other. 

“ It was quite like housekeeping,” Reinette said, and 
she made Phil promise to dine with her every day when 
he was in town. 

“ Not always here,” she said, “ but around in difierent 
places — under the trees, and in my new summer-house, 
which must be built directly, and every where.” 

She was the fiercest kind of a radical, always seeking 
something new, and Phil felt intuiiively that to foMow 
her would be to lead a busy, fatiguing life, but he was 


136 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


ready for it ; ready for anything ; ready tc jump into 
Lake Petit, if she said so, he thought, a little ater, when 
he saw her in her riding habit, mounted upon the snow- 
white Margery, who held her neck so high, and stepped 
along so proudly, as if conscious of the graceful burden 
site bore. Reinette was a fine horsewoman, and sat the 
saddle and handled the reins perfectly, and she and Phil 
made quite a sensation as they galloped into town, with 
King in close attendance, for Reinette had insisted that 
he should accompany them as a kind of body-guard. 

Their first call was upon Mr. Beresford, who came 
out and stood by Reinette’s horse as he talked to her, 
marveling at the change in this sparkling, brilliant crea- 
ture, so different from the tear-stained swollen-eyed girl 
he had seen in the morning. She told him of her plans 
for improvements, which she meant to begin immediately, 
and which Phil had said would cost at least two thou- 
sand dollars, but that did not matter. When she wanted 
a thing, she wanted it, and would Mr. Beresford give her 
the money at once, as she had only two or three hundred 
dollars in her purse at home. She talked as if gold grevv 
on bushes, and Mr. Beresford listened to her aghast, for 
unless he advanced it himself, there were not two thou- 
sand dollars for her in his possession. The repairs at 
Hetherton Place had already cost enormously, and there 
were still debts waiting to be paid. Mr. Hetherton’s 
death would of course retard matters a little, but it was 
impossible to refuse the eager, winsome girl, whose eyes 
lacked so straight into his own, and he promised to give 
her what she asked for, and said he had already written 
to Paris to Messrs. Polignie & Co., who he believed had 
charge of her father’s foreign business, adding that he 
should like the papers as soon as possible. 

Reinette said he should have them the next day, and 
added : 

“ I, too, am going to write to Messrs. Po ignie, to im 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


137 

quire for my old nurse, Christine Bodine. She knew 
mother, and I mean to find her if she is alive.” 

“Not that it matters bo* much, as there is no doubt 
that my mother was Margaret Ferguson,’' she said to 
Phil, as they rode off, and I am getting quite reconciled 
to it now that 1 know you. Would you mind,” and she 
dropped her voice a little, “ would you mind showing 
me the chimne 3 '^s and cellar walls our grandfather built ? 
and the beer shop where mother sewed the pieces of cloth 
together, and those shoes and things ?” 

Phil could not show her the chimneys John Ferguson 
had built, for though there were those in the town who 
often pointed them out when Mrs. Rossiter, his daughter 
dr<;ve by in her handsome carriage, he didn’t know where 
they were, but he could show her the beer shop, as she 
teimed it, though it bore no traces now of what it used 
to be. It was long and low, like many of the old New 
England houses, but it looked deliciously cool and 
pleasant under the tall elms, with its plats of grass and 
its sweet, old-fashioned flowers in full bloom. Grandma 
Ferguson, too, in her clean calico dress and white apron, 
with her hair combed smoothly back, made a different 
picture from what she didin the morning, with her wide 
ribbons and purple gloves. She was delighted to see 
them, and took Reinette all over the house, from the 
parlor where she said Paul Rossiter and Fred Hetherton 
had courted their wives, to the room where Reinette’s 
mother used to sleep when she was a girl, and where the 
high-post bed she occupied, and the chair she used to sit 
in, were still standing. 

“ Mary — that’s Miss Rossiter — wanted me to git some 
new furniture,” she said, as they stood in the quiet room, 
“ and I could afford it as well as not, for your gran’ther 
left me pretty well off, with what Mary aoes for me ; but 
somehow it makes Margaret seem nigher to me to have 
tne things she used to handle, and so I keep ’em, and 
sometimes when I’m lonesome for the days that are gone, 


138 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


and for my girl that is dead, I come up here and sit 
awhile and think I can see her 'ust as she used to look 
when I waked her in the mornin’, and she lay there on 
that piller smilin’ at me like a fresh young rose, with 
her hair failin’ over her pretty eyes ; and then I cry and 
wish I had her back, though I know she’s so happy now, 
and some day I shall see her again, if I’m good, and I do 
try to do the best that I know how. Poor Maggie, dear 
little Maggie, dead way over the seas.” 

Grandma was talking more to herself than to Reinette, 
and the great tears were dropping from her dim old 
eyes, and her rough, red hands were tenderly patting the 
pillows, where she had so often seen the dear head of the 
child “ dead way over the seas.” But to Reinette there 
was now no redness, or roughness about the hands, no 
coarseness about the woman, for all such minor things 
were forgotten in that moment of perfect accord and 
sympatliy, and Rcinette’s tears fell like rain as she bent 
over the hands which had touched her mother. 

“Blessed child,” grandma said, “I thank my God for 
sending you to me, and that you are good and true, like 
Margaret.” 

This was too much for the conscious-smitten Reinette, 
who burst out impulsively : 

“I’m not good ; I’m not true ; I’m bad and wicked as 
I can be, and I am going to confess it all here in mother’s 
room, hoping she can hear me, and know how sorry I 
am. I was proud and hot, and felt like fighting yester- 
day when I met you all, because it was so sudden, so 
different ; and this morning I rebelled again, and wanted 
to scream, but I’ll never do so again, and 1 Am going to 
make you so happy ; and now, please, go away and leave 
me for a little while.” 

Grandma Ferguson understood her in part, and went 
out, leaving the girl alone in the low, humb’e room, 
wliich had been Margaret’s. Kneeling by the bed, and 
burying her face in the pillows, Reinette sobbed like a 


REINETTE AND PHIL, 


139 


child as she asked forgiveness for all her proud rebellion 
against the grandmother whom in her hearj she knew to 
be kind and loving. The prayer did her good, and as 
hers was an April nature, she was as bright and playful 
as a kitten when she went down the steep, narrow stairs, 
and bidding her grandmother good-night, mounted her 
horse and started with Phil for Mrs. Lydia Ferguson’s. 
They found that lady very hot and nervous over a dress 
which must be finished that night, and on which Anna 
was working very unwillingly. Through an open door 
Reinette caught a glimpse of a disorderly supper-table, at 
which a man was sitting in his shirt sleeves, regaling 
himself with fried cakes and raw onions. 

“ Come, father,” Mrs. Lydia called, in a loud, shrill 
voice, “ here's Reinette, your neice. Reinette, this is 
your Uncle Tom, who is said to look enough like 
your mother to have been her twin.” 

His face was pleasant, and his manner was kindly, as 
he shook hands with Reinette, and said he was glad to 
see her, and told her that she favored the Hethertons 
more than the Fergusons, but Reinette saw that he be- 
longed to an entirely different world from her own, and 
when they were going over the house at the Knoll, she 
said to Phil that she felt as if she were backsliding aw- 
fully. 

“ Isn't there a couplet,” she asked, “ which runs thus : 

‘ The de’il when sick a saint would be. 

But when he got well, the de’il a saint was he.* 

^‘Now I am just like that. Over at grandmother's I felt 
as if I never could be bad again ; and I never will to 
grandmother. I shall make her caps and fix her dresses^ 
and coax her not to wear purple gloves, or call me 
Rennet. But O, Phil, shall I be so wicked that I can 
never go to Heaven if I don’t rave over those other 
people ? They are so different from anything J ever saw 


DOWN BY THE SEA. 


140 

before Now, this suits me ; this is more like Chateau 
des Fleurs," she said, as she followed Phil through the 
house until they came to his room, where, on the table, 
he found a telegram from his father, which was as 
follows : 

Come to us at once as I must go to Boston on busi- 
ness, and your mother needs you. 

“ Paul Rossiter." 

He read it aloud to Reinette, who exclaimed : 

“ I am so sorry, for now I shall be alone, and I meant 
to have you with me every day.” 

Phil was sorry, too, for the dark-eyed French girl had 
made sad havoc with his heart during the few hours he 
had known her. But there was no help for it ; he must 
go to his mother, and the next morning, when the Spring- 
field train, bound for Boston, left Merrivale, Phil was in 
it on his way to Martha’s Vineyard. 


CHAPTER XV. 

DOWN BY THE SEA. 

RS. ROSSITER occupied the handsomest 
rooms at the Sea View House, and on the 
morning of Phil’s arrival she lay on her couch 
by the open window, occasionally looking out 
upon the water, but mostly with her eyes fixed fondly 
upon her handsome boy, who sat by her side, fanning 
himself with his soft hat, and answering the numerous 
questions of his sisters, concerning Reinette, their new 
cousin, whose existence had taken them so by surprise 
How did she look ? What was she like } What ^id she 



£>OWN BY THE SEA, 


141 


> Wbat did she say, and who was to live with her 
in thai great lonely house ? 

“Don’t hurry a chap so !” said Phil. “ There’s a lot 
to tell, and I’d better begin at the beginning.’’ 

So he described first the arrival at the station, where 
grandma and Aunt Lydia were waiting in their weeds, 
and Anna was gorgeous in her white muslin and long 
lace scarf, while he flourished with a dirty face and torn, 
soiled pants. 

“ Oh, if you could have seen her face when we were 
presented to her as her cousins ^ and her uncles j and her 
aunts!' I tell you it was rich. I never saw such eyes in 
a human being’s head as those which flashed first upon 
one and then upon another of her new relations.’’ 

“ Do you really mean she had never heard of us at 
all ?’’ both Ethel and Grace asked in the same breath, 
and Phil replied by telling them everything which had 
transpired since Reinette’s arrival up to the time he had 
left her at her own door, dwelling at length upon her 
sparkling beauty, which he said might not perhaps be 
called beauty in the strict sense of the word. Some 
might think her too small and too dark, vyhile others 
would object to her forehead as too low, and her noseas 
a little too retrousse, but to Phil, who had seen the rich 
warm color come and go on her clear olive cheeks, who 
had seen her dark eyes flash, and sparkle, and dance until 
her whole person seemed to shine and glow like some 
rare diamond, she was supremely beautiful, and he dwelt 
upon her loveliness and piquancy, and freshness, while 
his mother and sisters listened breathlessly, but not so 
breathlessly as the girl in the adjoining room, who sat 
making some changes in a dress Miss Ethel was to wear 
that night to a hop in the hotel. 

The door between the two rooms was only slightly 
ajar, and Margery La Rue had not heard a word of the 
conversation between the brother and sisters until her 
ear caught the name of Reinette, followed soon by Hetb* 


142 


DOWN BY THE SEA. 


erton and Paris. Then the work dropped fron* hei 
hands, and a sudden pallor crept into her cheeks, which 
ordinarily were like the sweet roses of June. 

“ Reinette ; Reinette Hetherton,” she whispered. “ Is 
there another name like that in all the world > Is it my 
Reinette, my Queenie, the dearest, best friend I ever had ? 
Impossible, for what can she be doing here in America, 
in Merrivale, where I have thought to go !” 

There was a death-like faintness in the heart of this 
girl, whose whispered words were in French, and were 
scarcely words so softly were they spoken. 

“ Reinette, Reinette ! ” she repeated, as with clasped 
hands, and head bent forward in the attitude of intense 
listening, she heard the whole story Phil told, and 
laughed a little to herself at the ludicrous description of 
the Fergusons, and the impression they made upon the 
stranger. I can imagine just how cold and haughty, 
and proud she grew, and how those great eyes blazed 
with scorn and incredulity, if it is my Reinette he means,” 
she thought; “but it cannot be. There is some mis- 
take.” Then as the name Queenie was spoken she half 
rose to her feet and laid both hands upon her mouth to 
force back the glad cry which sprang to her lips. There 
could be no longer a doubt. This foreigner, this girl 
from France, this cousin of the Rossiters, this near 
relation of the Fergusons, whoever they might be, was 
her Queenie, her darlings whom she loved with such 
devotion as few women have ever inspired in another. 
How she longed to rush into the next room and pour out 
question after question concerning her friend ; but this 
she could not do ; she was only a seamstress and must 
remain quiet, for the present at least, for she did not 
know how the Rossiters would like her to claim acquain- 
tance and friendship with their kinswoman. So she re- 
sumed her work while the talk in the next room flowed 
on, always of Queenie, as they called her because '^liil 
did, and in wlK)m the mother and sisters were so greatly 


DOWN BY THE SEA. 


145 


interested. They had intended stopping at the sea-side for 
the summer, but new they spoke of an earlier return lo 
Merrivale on Queenie’s account, a plan of which Pi 11 
highly approved, for he would far rather be at home 
than there, especially as his mother was improving daily. 

“ And Anna ? How is she ?” Ethel asked “ Does she 
take kindly to our cousin, or is she jealous of her, as of 
us.?’' 

This mention of Anna reminded Phil of the Miss La 
Rue, who had written to his aunt, and in whose identity 
with her friend, Queenie had been so much interested. 

“By the way,” he said, “there’s a dressmaker here 
somewhere, a Margery La Rue, from Paris, whom 
Queenie thinks she knows, and over whom she goes 
into rhapsodies. Do you know her, and is she the 
person who wrote to Aunt Lydia with regard to her 
business ?” 

A warning “ sh-sh” came from both the young ladies, 
with a nod toward the slightly open door, indicating 
that the person inquired for was there. Then the 
voices were lowered and the door was shut, and the 
wonder and interest increased as Ethel and Grace heard 
all which Reinette had said of their dressmaker, whose 
taste and skill they esteemed so highly that they 
had suggested her going to Merrivale, but did not 
then know that she had written to their aunt, for the girl 
was very reticent concerning herself and her business, 
and only spoke when she was spoken to. 

“ It is very strange that she should know our cousin 
so well,” Ethel said. “I mean to sound her on the sub- 
ject, and hear what she has to say,” and as it was time 
for Mrs. Rossiter to take her airing in her invalid chair 
the conference broke up, and on pretext of seeing to lier 
dress Ethel went into the room where Margery now sat 
sewing as quietly and composedly as if she had never 
heard of Queenie Hetherton. 


f44 


MARGEH Y LA R UE, 


CHAPTER XVI. 

MARGERY LA RUE. 



^^HE was a tall, beautiful blonde, with reddish 
golden hair, and lustrous blue eyes sliaded 
with long curling eyelashes and heavy eye- 
brows, which made them seem darker than 
they really were. The features were finely cut and 
perfectly regular, and the whole face and figure were ol 
that refined, delicate, type supposed to belong mostly to 
the upper classes in whose veins the purest of patrician 
blood is flowing. She said she was twenty-one, but she 
seemed older on account of that air of independence 
and self-reliance habitual to persons accustomed to care 
and think for themselves. She had come to America 
the April previous and stopped at Martha’s Vineyard 
with her mother, who was short, and stout, and dark, but 
rather prepossessing in her manner, with more signs of 
culture and education than is usual with the ordinary 
type of French woman. In her girlhood she must liave 
been very pretty and attractive, with her bright com- 
plexion and large black eyes, which had not yet Tost 
their brilliancy, though there was in them a sad thought- 
ful expression, as if she were continually haunted with 
some bitter memory.. 

Margery had been introduced to the Misses Rossiter 
by a friend from Boston who had employed her in Paris, 
but occupied as they were with their mother and the 
gay world around them, they had hardly thought whethei 
she were unusually pretty or not, until Phil electrified 
them with the news that she was the friend of their 
cousin, who said she was beautiful. 

“ I will look at her now for myself,” Ethel thought, as 
she entered the room where Margery sat sewing, with a 


MAR GER Y LA R UE, 


145 


deep flush on her cheek and a bright, eager look in the 
blue eyes lifted respectfully but inquiringly to the face 
of her employer. 

During ihe last ten minutes Margery’s thoughts had 
been traveling back over ihe past to the early days of her 
childhood, when her home was on the upper floor of a 
high dwelling in the rue St. Honore, where her days 
W'ere passed in loneliness, except for the companionship 
of a cat and her playthings, of which she had a great 
abundance. Her parents were poor, and her mother was 
busy all day at a hair-dresser’s, going out early and 
coming home late, while her father worked she did not 
know where, and sometimes it entered her little active 
brain that perhaps he did not work at all, for on the days 
when she went to walk, as she occasionally did, with the 
woman who had the floor below, and who looked after 
and was kind to the lonely little girl in the attic, she 
often saw him lounging and drinking at a third-class cafe 
which they passed when her friend, Lisette Vertueil, had 
clothes to carry to lier patn/iis, for Lisette was a laun- 
dress, and washed for many of the upper class. Some- 
times, too, Margery heard her mother reproach her father 
for his indolence and thriftlessness, and then there was 
always a quarrel, into which her name was dragged, 
though in what way she could not tell. She only knew 
that after these quarrels her mother was, if possible, 
kinder to her than before — and said her prayers oftener 
in a little closet off from the living room. Her father, 
too, was kind to her in his rough, off-hand way, but she 
did not love him as she did her pretty mother, and when 
at last he died, her grief for him though violent at first 
was very short-lived and soc n forgotten, as the griefs of 
children are. 

Among the patrons of Lisette Vertueil was Mr. 
Hetherton, the reputed millionaire, whose elegant 
carriage and horses sometimes stood on the St. Honore 
while his housekeeper talked to Lisette of the garments 


7 


MARGERY LA RUE. 


146 

she had brought to be washed for her little mistress, Miss 
Reinette — garments dainty enough for a princess to wear, 
and which Lisette took great pride in shDwing to her 
neighbors, as a kind of advertisement for herself. 

One morning when Margery was spending an hour or 
two with the laundress, helping to fold the clothes pre- 
paratory to being sent home, Lisette had shown her tlic 
lovely embroidered dresses, and told her of the little 
black-eyed girl who occasionally came there with her 
maid, and seemed so much like a playful kitten, in her 
quick, varying moods. 

“ Oh, how I wish I was rich like her, and had such, 
lovely dresses, and how I’d like to see her ! Do you 
think she’d come up to our room, if you asked her?’' 
Margery said, and Lisette replied that she did not know 
but would try what she could do. 

Accordingly, the next time Reinette came to the laun- 
dry, in her scarlet hood and cloak, trimmed with white 
ermine and lined with quilted satin, Lisette told her of the 
little girl who lived on the floor above, and who was alone 
all day, with only her doll and cat to talk to, and who 
would like to see her. 

The cat and doll attracted Reinette quite as much as 
the little girl, and with the permission of her maid, she 
was soon climbing the steep, narrow, but perfectly 
clean stairway which lead to Numero 40. Mr. La Rue 
had been home to lunch that day, and Margery, though 
scarcely nine years old, was clearing away the remnants 
of their plain repast, and brushing up the hearth, when the 
door was pushed softly open, and a pair of bright, laugh- 
ing eyes looking at her from under the scarlet and ermine, 
and a sweet bird-like voice said : 

“ Please, Margie, may I come in ? I am Reinette 
Hetherton — Queenie, papa calls me, and I like that best. 
Lisette said you lived up here all alone with only the cat 
Where is she ? Id m’t see her.” 

Margery was stau hng before the fire, broom in hand, 


MARGERY LA RUE. 


147 


>vith a long-sleeved apron on, which came to her feet and 
concealed her dress entirely, while her hair was hi ideri in 
a cap she always wore at her work. At the sound ot 
Reinette’s voice she started suddenly, and dropping her 
broom, gazed open-mouthed at the vision of loveliness 
addressing her so familiarly. The mention of the cat 
struck a chord of sympathy, and she replied at once : 

“ She isn’t she ; she’s he^ and his name is Jacques. There 
he is, under father’s chair,” and the two girls bumped their 
heads together as they both stooped at the same moment tc 
capture the cat, who was soon purring in Reinette’s lap, as 
she sat before the fire, w'ith Margery on the floor beside 
her, admiring her bright face and beautiful dress. 

“ I’ve nothing half so pretty as this,” Margery said, 
despondingly, as she touched the scarlet cloak. “ My best 
coat is plaid, and I only wear it on Sundays.” 

“ Oh my ! ” Reinette replied, with a great air of self- 
importance, “ I have three more. One is velvet, lined with 
rose color, which I wear to church, and when I drive with 
papa in the Bois. Do you ever go there, or on the Chaitips 
(TElysees ? ” 

“I walk there sometimes on Sundays with mother, 
but I was never in a real carriage in my life,” was Mar- 
gery’s reply, and Reinette rejoined : 

“ Then you shall be. I’ll make Celine — that’s my maid 
— take us this very afternoon. There’ll be a crowd, and 
it will be such fun ! But why do you wear that big apron 
and cap ? — they disfigure you so.” 

Margery blushed and explained that she wore them to 
keep her clothes clean ; then, divesting herself of the ob- 
noxious garments, she shook down her rippling hair, and 
stood before Reinette, who exclaimed : 

“ How sweet you are, with that bright sunny hair and 
those lovely blue eyes ! I wish mine were blue. I hate 
’em— the nasty old things, so black and so vixenish, Celine 
says, when I am mad^ as I am more than half the time. But 
tell me, do you really ’ive here all alone with the cat?*' 


MARGERY LA RUE. 


148 


“ Oh no." And in a few words Mari^ery explained 
her mode of life, which to the pampered child of luxury 
seemed desolate in the extreme. 

“Oh, that’s dreadful ! " she said ; “and I am so sorry 
for you ! You ought to see our apartments at the Hotel 
Meurice. They are just lovely ! and Chateau des Fleurs 
our country home, is prettier than the Tuilleries — tlie 
grounds are, I mean — and most as pretty as Versailles." 

Margery listened with rapt attention to Reinette’s 
description of her beautiful home, and then, as she said 
tier father was an American, she suddenly interrupted 
her with : 

“ Can you speak English ?" 

“ Of course I can," said Reinette. “ I always speak it 
with papa, who wishes me to know it as well as French. 
Mamma was English, and died at Rome when I was born, 
and I go to an English school, and when papa is away, 
as he is a great deal, I board at the school, and have such 
fun, because they don’t dare touch me, papa is so rich." 

“ Oh, if I could only speak English ! Mother wishes 
me to learn it, and says 1 shall by and by, wlien she can 
afford it. She speaks it a little," Margery said ; and, 
after a moment, Reinette replied : 

“ 111 tell you what I’m going to do. Papa has more 
money than he knows what to do with, and I mean to 
tease him till he gives me some for you, and you shall 
go to that school with me." 

“ Oh, I shall be so glad, and I’ll tell mother to-night ! ’ 
Margery exclaimed, feeling unbounded faith in Reinette’s 
ability to accomplish anything. 

N or was her faith at all shaken when, a few minutes 
later Reinette’s smart maid Celine came up the stairs 
after her little mistress, who horrified her with the 
announcement that she meant to take her new friend for 
a drive in the Champs d’Elysees. 

“ I shall ; I will," she said, as Celine protested against 
it. “ I like her, and she’s never been in a carriage in hei 


MARGERY LA RUE. 


145 

life, and she stays here all day with the cat, an 1 washes 
die dishes, and she’s going to ride with me, and I’ll spit 
and bite, if you don’t let her/' 

Celine knew better than 10 oppose the imperious 
cliild when in this mood, and besides, there was something 
very winning and attractive in the bright-haired, blue 
eyed little girl, whose dress, though plain, was becoming 
and faultlessly clean. She certainly was no ordinary 
child, and that beautiful face would not disgrace the 
carriage. So Celine consented, and with joy beaming in 
» very feature Margery brought out her plaid cloak and 
.lood, which presented so striking a contrast to the rich 
• carlet one of Reinette that she drew back at once, and 
rith quivering lip said to Celine : 

“ I must not go. I am so shabby beside her. She 
'^ould be ashamed, and that I could not bear. Oh I 
vish I was she and she me, just for once — wish I could 
vear a scarlet cloak and see how it seemed.” 

*■ You shall ! ” Reinette cried, with great tears in her 
5yes. “You shall know how it seems. We’ll make 
believe you are papa’s little girl, and I am Margery,” 
ind before Celine could divine her intention, she was 
removing her dainty scarlet cloak and hood, and putting 
them on Margery, who wa^ too much astonished to resist, 
■)ut stood perfectly still, while Reinette wrapped the 
innine, and satin, and merino around her, and put the 
plaid cloak and hood upon herself. “ Oh, how lovely 
you are,” she said, gazing admiringly at Marger)", “ anti 
how ugly I am in this plaid. Nobody will know bui 
what you are really Queen ie Hetherton, and I am ISIar 
gery,” and she dragged the child down the stairs, and 
out into the street, where at a corner the Hethert</n 
carriage was waiting. 

Reinette gave Margeiw the seat of honor, and then sat 
down beside her, looking somewhat like a dowdy bit of 
humanity in the plain plaid cloak, with the large hood 
biding her face. But she enjoyed it immensely, playing 


MARGERY LA RUE, 


r5o 

that she was Margery, and bade the coachman dnve 
straight to the Champs d’Elysees. 

It was a lovely winter afternoon, and all the Amer- 
icans and English, with many of the Parisians, were out, 
making the Champs d’Elysees and the Bois beyond 
seem like a brilliant procession of gayly-dressed people 
M.nd .splendid equipages. And among the latter none 
was handsomer or more noticeable than the fine bays 
and elegant carriage of Mr. Hetherton, in which Margery 
sat making believe that she was Queenie, and enjoying it 
as much as if she had really been the daughter of the 
millionaire, instead of humble Margeiy La Rue, whose 
mother was a hair-dresser, and whose father was a noth- 
ing. 

How happy she was, and how in after years that win- 
ter when she rode in the Champs d’Elysees in borrowed 
plumes, stood out before her as the bright spot in her life 
from which dated all the sunshine and all the sorrow, tco, 
which ever came to her. Nor was it hard for her to go 
back to the humble lodgings — to give up the scarlet cloak 
and be Alargery again, for she had so much now to think 
of ; so much to tell her mother, whom she found waiting 
at the head of the narrow stairs, with a white, scared look 
on her face, and an eager, wistful expressfon in her eyes 
which seemed to look past Margery, down the dark stair- 
way, as if in quest of some one else. 

“Oh mother,” Margery cried, “you are home early 
to-night, and I am so happy. Heaven can never be any 
brighter than this afternoon has been to me, playing that 
I was Mr. Hethcrton’s little girl, and wearing her scarlet 
cloak.” 

She was in the room by this time, taking off her own 
plaid coat, which she had put on in the court below, and 
talking so fast that she did not see the pallor on her 
mother’s face, or how tightly her hands clinched on the 
back of a chair as she stood looking at her. 

Mrs, La Pue had been dismissed by her employe! 


MARGERY LA RUE, 


151 

earlier than usual, and finding Margery gone, had been 
to Lisette’s room to make inquiries for her. 

“ Are you sick ? ” Lisette asked, as Mrs. La Rue dropped 
suddenly into a chair when she heard where Margery had 
gone and with whom. “ You look as if you had seen a ghost.” 

Making an excuse that she was tired, and not feeling 
quite as well as usual, Mrs. La Rue soon went back to 
her own apartment, and kneeling down by the wooden 
chair before the fire, cried bitterly, as people only cry 
when some great wrong done in the past, or some terrible 
memory which they had thought dead and buried forever, 
rises suddenly from the grave and confronts them with 
all the olden horror. 

“ Reinette and Margery together, side by side !” she 
said. “ Oh, if I could see it — see her ; but no, I have 
promised, and I must keep my vow. I dare not break it.’ 

For a long time she lay with her head upon the chair, 
and then remembering that Margery would soon be com- 
ing home and must not find her thus, she arose, and wip- 
ing t?lie tear stains from her face, busied herself with pre- 
parations for the evening meal until she heard upon the 
stairs the bounding step which alawys sent a thrill of joy 
to her heart, and in a moment Marger)^ came in with her 
blue eyes shining like stars and her cheeks glowing with 
excitement, as she talked of the wonderful things she had 
seen, and of Queenie, “who,” she said, “acted as if I was 
just as good as she, and her father so rich, too, with such 
a 1 jvely chateau, and she was like a picture, as she sat 
talking to me on this hard old chair,” and she indicated 
the one by which her mother had knelt, and on which the 
tears were scarcely yet dried. 

“ This one? Did she sit on this one?'* Mrs. La Rue 
asked, eagerly, laying her hand caressingly on the chair 
where Queenie Hetherton had sat and talked to Margery. 

“ And what is the very best of all,” Margery contin- 
ued, “ she goes to an English school, and when I told her 
how much I wanted to learn English, she said she’d tease 


^52 


QUEEN IE AND MARGERY 


her father for the money to pay for me, too ; and she kne^ 
she’d get it, for he gives her every thing she wants. Oh, 
I do hope he will. I mean to ask God to-night to make 
him. Lisette says I must ask \ni what I want, and Jesus 
will hear and ansRver. Do you think he will .? Does He 
answer you ? ” 

“Oh, Margery, Marger}^, I never pray. I am too 
wicked, too bad. God w’ould not hear ine^ but he will 
you : so pray, child, pray,” Mrs, La Rue replied, and 
seizing the little girl she hugged her passionately, and 
raining kisses upon her forehead and lips, released her 
as suddenly, and turned quickly away to hide her anguish 
from her. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

QUEENIE AND MARGERY. 

HAT evening Mr. Hetherton sat in his hand- 
some salon at the Hotel Meurice, smoking his 
after-dinner cigar, and occasionally reading 
a page or two in the book on the table beside 
him. He was a very handsome man in his middle age — 
handsomer even than he haxl been in his youth, for theie 
was about him now a style and elegance of manner 
which attracted attention from every one. And yet he 
was not popular, and had no intimate friends. He was 
loo reserved and uncommunicative for that, and people 
called h’m proud, and haughty, and misanthi opical. 
That he was not happy was evident from the shadow 
always on his face — the shadow it would seem of 
lemorse, as if some haunting memory were ever present 
with him, marring every joy. Even Reinette, whom 
he idolized, had no power to chase away that brooding 



QUEENIE AND MARGERY, 


153 


s)‘adow ; on the contrary, a close observer woiiid have 
said that it was darkest when she carressed him most, 
and when her manner was most bewitching. wSome- 
times when she climbed into his lap, and, winding her 
arms around his neck, laid her soft, warm cheek against 
his, and told him he was the best and dearest father in 
the world, and asked him of her mother who died, he 
v/ould spring up suddenly, and pushing her from him, 
exclaim, as he walked rapidly up and dcwn the room : 

“ Child, you don’t know what you are saying. I am 
not good. I am very far from being good, but she 
was — my Margaret. Oh, Queenie, be like her if you 
can !” 

On these occasions Queenie would go away into a 
corner, and with her bright, curious eyes watch him till 
the mood was over, and then stealing up to him again 
would nestle closer to him and half-timidly stroke his 
forehead and hair with her little hand and tell him no 
matter how bad he was she loved him just the same and 
should forever and ever. Queenie was his idol, the sun 
of his existence, and he lavished upon her all the love 
of which a strong nature is capable. She could do 
anything with him, and take any liberty, and as he sat 
alone in his room he was not greatly surprised when the 
door opened softly and a pair of roguish black eyes 
looked in upon him for an instant — then a little white- 
robed figure in its night toilet crossed the floor swiftly, 
and springing into his lap began to pat his face, and 
kiss his lips, and write words upon his forehead for him 
to guess. This was one of the child’s favorite pastimes 
since she had learned to write, and she had great fun with 
her father making him guess the words she traced upon 
his brow. But he could not do it now until she helped 
him to the first three letters, when he made out the name 
of Margeiy, and felt himself grow suddenly faint and 
cold, for that was the pet name he had sometimes given 
his wife in the early days of their acquaintance and 


*54 


QUEEN IE AND MARGERY. 


married life. But how did Queenie know t How 
came she by that name which burned into his forehead 
like letters of fire and carried him back to the meadows, 
and bills, and shadowy woods of Merrivale, where a 
blue-eyed, golden-haired girl had walked with him hand 
ia haul, and whom he had called Ma,rgery ? 

“Guess now what is her name and who she is.^” 
Q.ieenie said, holding his face between her hands, and 
looking straight into his eyes. 

“ Margery is the name,” he said, and his voice trem- 
bled a little. “But who is she ?” 

And then the story came out of the little girl who lived 
all day with the cat on the top floor of a tenement house, in 
Rue St. Honore, and who wanted so badly to go to school, 
but could not because her mother was poor and had no 
money to send her. 

“ But you have,” Queenie continued ; “ you have more 
than you know what to do with, people say, and I want 
you to give me some for her, because I like her — I don’t 
know why exactly, only I do, and did the first minute I 
saw her. I felt as if I wanted to hug her hard — as if she 
belonged to me ; and you’ll do it, papa, I know you will! 
You’ll send little Margery La Rue to the same school 
with me.” 

Mr. Hetherton did not reply to this, but asked numer- 
ous questions concerning his daughter’s acquaintance 
with Margery La Rue, whose mother was a hair-dresser, 
and expressed las displeasure with Celine for having 
taken her to such places. 

“ You are never to go there again, under any circum- 
s‘:ances,” he said, and Reinette replied, promptly : 

“Yes, I shall. I’ll run away every day and go there, 
and to worse places, too. I will go the Jardin^ if you don’t 
give me the money for Margery, but if you do I will piom« 
ise never to go there again — only Celine shall go for her 
to ride with me. I am bound to do that!” 

And so she gained her point, and the next day Celinr 


QUEENIE AND MARGERY, 


155 


was {>ent to Lisette to make inquiries concerning Mrs. 
La Rue. As these proved satisfactory, arrangements 
were made with the principal of the English scliool to 
receive little Margery as a day pupil at half pay, in con- 
sideration of her performing some menial service in the 
school-room by way of dusting the desks and putti ig 
the books in order after school was over. 

Queenie was delighted, and from the day when Mar- 
gery became a pupil in the English school, she was her 
avowed champion, and stood by her always, and fought 
for her sometimes when a few of the French girls sneered 
at her position as duster of their books. 

Naturally quick to learn, and easier to retain than 
Queenie, as Margery always called her, she soon out- 
stripped her in all their studies, and was of great service 
in helping her to master her lessons, and acquit herself 
with a tolerable degree of credit. 

But for Margeiy, who would go patiently over the les- 
son time after time with her indolent friend, Queenie 
would often have been in disgrace, for she was not par- 
ticularly fond of books, and lacked the application nec- 
essary to a thorough scholar. Once, when she had com- 
mitted a grave misdemeanor which had been strictly for- 
bidden on pain of heavy punishment, Margery was sus- 
pected and found guilty, and though she knew Queenie 
to be the culprit, she did not speak, but stood up bravely 
to receive the chastisement which was to be administered 
in the presence of the whole school, and was to be 
unusually severe as a warning to others. Margery was 
very pale as she took her place upon the platform, and 
held out her beautiful white arm and hand to the master, 
and her blue eyes glanced just once wistfully and 
pleadingly toward the corner where Queenie sat, her 
own eyes shut, and her fists clenched tightly together 
until the first blow fell upon the innocent Margery. 
Then swift as lightning she went to the rescue, and 
before the astounded master knew what she was doing 


156 


QUEENIE AND MARGERY. 


she had wrested the r.iler from him, and hurling it 
across the room sprang into a chair, and had him by the 
collar, and even by the hair, while she cried out : 

“ You vile, nasty man, don’t you touch Margery 
again. If you do I will puli every hair out of your head. 
You might have known she didn’t do it. It was /, and 
1 am nastier and viler than you, for I kept still just 
because I was afraid to be hurt, and le; her bear it fcr 
me. / am the guilty one. / did it, and she knew it and 
never told. Beat me to a pumice if you want to. 1 de- 
serve it and jumping from the chair and crossing the 
floor, Queenie picked up the ruler, and giving it to the 
master, held out her little fat hand for the punishment 
she merited. But by this time the entire school had be- 
come demoralized, as it were, and the pupils thronged 
around their bewildered teacher, begging him to spare 
Queenie, who became almost as much a heroine as 
Margery, because that, notwithstanding her cowardice 
at the first, she had at the last shown so much genuine 
moral courage and nobleness. 

Queenie wrote the whole transaction to her father, who 
was in Norway, and asked that as a recompense to Mar- 
gery she be invited to spend the summer vacation at 
Chateau des Fleurs, where Queenie was going with 
Celine. To this Mr. Hetherton consented, and all Uie 
long, bright days of summer Margery was at Chateau des 
Fleurs, which seemed to her like Paradise. Nothing 
could exceed Queenie’s devotion to her from that time 
onward, and when at eighteen she left school, Queenie 
stood by her still, and found her a situat-on as govemevi 
in an English family who lived in Geneva, and when, af- 
ter a few months, Margery said she did not like the life 
of a governess, as it deprived her of all her independence 
of a.ction, and made her a mere block, subjecting her to 
insults from the sons of the house and guests of the 
family, Reinette, who knew her perfect taste in erv- 
-hing periaiiiing to a lady’s toilet, and the skill wiu^ 


QUEENIE AND MARGERY, 


157 


which she fitted her own dresses, suggested that she 
should try dressmaking as an experiment, wi hout the 
formality of regularly learning the trade, which would 
take so much valuable time. So Margery set up as an 
amateur in the pleasant appartments in Rue de la Paix, 
where Mrs. La Rue had lived since the death of her 
husband, which occurred during Margery’s second year 
in school. 

It would seem that Mr. La Rue, with his indolent 
habits, had been a great draft upon his wife's earnings, 
for, after he died, there was a perceptible change in her 
manner of living. Money V7a,s more plenty, and every- 
thing was on a larger, freer .scale, so that Margery’s home 
was a very comfortable one, especially after her wonder- 
ful skill in fitting, and perfect taste in trimming, and, 
more than all, the patronage of Miss Hetherton, began to 
attract people to her rooms. Now, as in her school days, 
Queenie was her good angel, and brought her more 
work, and paid her more money than any four of her 
other customers. 

Once, and only once, did Reinette meet Mrs. La Rue, 
who seemed rather to avoid than to seek her, and that 
was on an occasion when she came in from the country 
unexpectedly, and found Margery busy with a lady in the 
fitting-room. 

“ Tell her I am Miss Hetherton, and that I will wait,” 
Reinette said to the small, dark woman whom she found 
in the reception-room, and whom she mistook for an upper 
servant or housekeeper. 

“ Miss Hetherton ! Margery’s Reinette !' the woman 
exclaimed, turning quickly and coming close ^o the young 
lady, wiiose pride rebelled at once at this familiarity, and 
who assumed her haughtiest, most freezing manner, as 
she replied : 

“ Yes, I am Miss Hetherton. Tell your mistress 1 am 
here, at once.” 


Q UEENIE AND MA RGER K. 


158 

Al\ the blood rushed to Mrs. La Rue’s face, and her 
Toice shook as she said : 

She is my daughter, and I am Mrs. La Rue. I beg 
your pardon if I seemed rude, but you have been so kind 
to Margery, and I have so wished to see you.” 

“Deliver my message first,” Reinette, said, with the 
air of a princess, for the woman’s manner displeased her 
and she could see no reason why she should stand there 
staring so fixedly at her with that strange look in her 
glittering eyes as of one insane. 

At this command Mrs. La Rue turned to leave the 
room, but ere she went she laid her hand on Reinette’s 
tenderly, caressingly, as we touch the hands of those we 
love, and said : 

“ Excuse me, but I must touch you once, must thank 
you.” So saying she left the room and did not return, 
nor did Reinette ever see her again, except on one occa- 
sion when she was driving with Margery in the Bois de 
Boulogne, and passed her, sitting upon a bench beneath 
a shade tree. The recognition was mutual, but Reinette 
did not return her slight nod, or pretend to see her at 
all. 

This was in October, and not long afterwards Mar- 
gery startled Reinette by telling her that she was going 
for a winter to Nice, and possibly to Rome. 

“ Mother has not seemed herself for several weeks,’ 
she said, “ and I think she needs a change of air ; besides, 
I am most anxious to see Italy.” 

And so, two weeks later, the friends bade each other 
good-by, and after one or two letters had passed between 
them, the correspondence suddenly closed on Margery’s 
side, and the two friends knew nothing more of each 
other’s whereabouts, until each was startled to hear 
that the other was in America. 

Such was in part the history of Margery up to the day 
when Miss Ethel Rossiter entered the room where she 


QU ERNIE AND MARGERY. 


159 

was sewing, and after moving about a little and inspccT- 
ing the trimming of her dress, began hesitatingly : 

‘‘By the way, Miss La Rue, my brother has been 
telling us about our cousin, Miss Reinette Hetherton. 
who has just come from Europe, and who says she knew 
a Margery La Rue in Paris. Is it possible she means 
you ? " 

“Yes, oh, yes !“ and Margery’s face was all aglow with 
excitement as she looked quickly up. “ Yes, Miss Rossi- 
ter ; you must excuse me, but the door was open, and I 
could not help hearing some things your brother said — 
he talked so loud ; and I know it is my Qiieenie. I 
always called her that because she bade me do so. She 
is the dearest friend I ever had, and I have loved her 
since that wintry afteruoon when she brought so much 
sunshine into my life — when she came into our humble 
home, in her scarlet and rich ermine, and sat down on 
the hard old chair, and acted as if I were her equal. And 
she has been my good angel ever since. She persuaded 
her father to send me to the English school where she 
was a pupil. She got me a situation as governess, and 
when I rebelled against the confinement and the degrad- 
ation — she persuaded me to take up dressmaking, for 
which I had a talent, and encouraged and stood by me, 
and brought me more work than any ten of my other 
customers. Oh, I would die for Queenie Hetherton !” 

Margery had talked rapidly, and her blue eyes were 
almost black in lier eagerness and excitement, while Ethel 
listened to her intently, and thought how beautiful she 
was, and wondered, too, when or where she had seen a 
face like the face of this fair French girl, whose accent 
was so pretty, and whose manners were so perfect. 

“And she is your cousin,” Margery said: “that is 
strange, for I always understood that her mother was aa 
English woman.” 

Ethel colored a little, and replied : 

“ Yes, her mother and mine were sisters, Mr. Hether- 


i6o QUEEN IE AND MAE GEE V. 

ton’s old home was in Merri/ale. Did you ever sec 
him ?” 

-Once, on horseback, in the Bois. I was driving 
with his daughter, and she made him stop and speak to 
us. He was very fine-looking and gentlemanly, Imt I 
thought him proud and reserved, and I believe he had 
that name in Paris.” 

Mrs. Rossiter had returned by this time, and entering 
the room, joined in the conversation, asking many ques- 
tions of the Hethertons and their life in Paris and at 
Chateau des Fleurs, which Margery described as a perfect 
palace of beauty and art. 

“Is Reinette pretty ?” Grace asked, and Margery 
replied : 

“You might not think her so when she is quiet and 
her features in repose, but when she is excited and ani- 
mated, she sparkles, and glows, and flashes, and shines, 
as if there were a blaze of light encircling her, and then 
she is more beautiful than anything I ever looked upon, 
and she takes your bieath away with her brilliancy and 
brightness.” 

“ You must have heard her speak often of her mother, 
my sister,” Mrs. Rossiter said, and Margery replied . 

“ Yes, many times ; and at Chateau des Fleurs there 
was a lovely portrait of Mrs. Hetherton, taken in creamy 
white satin, with pearls on her neck and in her wavy 
hair. She must have been beautiful. There is a resem- 
blance, I see, between you all and that portrait.” 

“ Do you know where that portrait is now ?” Mrs. Ros- 
siter asked ; and Margery replied by telling her that, 
nearly six years before. Chateau des Fleurs was burned, 
with all there was in it, and she believed there was now 
no portrait of Mrs. Hetherton in the family. 

It seemed so strange to the Rossi ters that this foreign- 
er should know so much more than themselves of the 
Hethertons, and for a long time they continued to ply 
her with questions corcerning the new cousin whom they 
had never seen. 


QUEEN IE AND MARGERY. 


x6i 


After a time Phil came sauntering into the room in 
his usual indolent, easy manner, and was presented tc 
Margery, whose blue eyes scanned him curiously and 
questioningJy. She had heard enough of his conversa- 
tion to guess that he was already far gone in love with 
Queenie, and she was anxious to know what manner of 
man he was. Something in his manner and the expres- 
sion of his face fascinated her strangely, while he, in 
turn, was equally drawn toward her ; and when at last 
her work was done and she started for home, he 
exclaimed, under his breath, as he watched her going 
down the street: 

“ By Jove, Ethel, if I had never seen Queenie, I 
should say this dressmaker of yours was the loveliest 
woman I ever saw. Look at that figure, and the way 
she carries her head. I don’t wonder Queenie raves over 
her; such eyes, and hair, and complexion I never saw.” 

Meanwhile Margery was walking rapidly toward the 
cottage where she and her mother had rooms. 

“ Oh, mother,” she began, as she took off her hat and 
scarf and began to arrange her hair before the little 
mirror, have such news to-day! Queenie — Miss 
Hetherton — is here I” 

“ Here ! Reinette Hetherton here ! and her father 
Mrs. La Rue exclaimed, springing to her feet as suddenly 
as if a bullet had pierced her. 

But Margery’s back was toward her, and she did not 
see how agitated she was, or how deathly white she grew 
at the reply. 

“ Her father died on shipboard just as they reached 
New York, and Queenie is all alone in Merrivale.” 

“ Mr. Hetherton dead !” Mrs. La Rue repeated, as 
she diopped back into her chair, while the hot blood 
surged for a moment to her face and then left it pallid 
and gray as the face of a corpse. 

Something unnatural in the tone of her voice attracted 
Margery, who turned to look at her. 


i 62 


QUEEN IE AND MARGERY. 


“ Why, mother, what is it ? Are you sick ?” she 
cried, crossing swiftly to her and passing her arm around 
her as she leaned back heavily in the chair. 

“ I have been very dizzy-like all the morning. It is 
nothing : it will soon pass off,” Mrs. La Rue replied. 

But when Margery insisted that she should lie down 
and be quiet, she did not refuse, but suffered her 
daughter to lead her to the lounge and bring her the 
hartshorn and camphor. 

“Cover me up, Margery,” she said, as a shiver like 
an ague chill ran through her veins. Fm so cold. 
There, that will do ; and now sit down beside me, and 
let me hold your hand while you tell me of your friend 
and her father, and how he died, and who told you. It 
will interest me, may be, and make me forget my bad 
feelings.” 

So Margery sat down beside her, and took the hot 
hand which held hers with a grasp which was sometimes 
actually painful as the narrative proceeded, and Margery 
told all she had heard from the Rossiters. 

“ And to think, her mother was an American, and that 
the Rossiters are her cousins, and her father’s old home 
is Merrivale, where I thought of going ! Oh, if I could 
only go there now !” Margery said ; but her mother did 
not express surprise at anything. 

On the contrary, a more suspicious person than Mar- 
gery would have said that the story was not new to her, 
for she occasionally asked some question which showed 
some knowledge of Queenie’s antecedents. But this 
Margery did not observe. She only thought her mother 
a little strange and sick, and was glad when her closed 
eyes and perfectly motionless figure indicated that 
she was sleeping. 

Covering her a little more closely and dropping the 
shade so that the light should not disturb her, she stoic 
softly out, leaving the wretched woman alone with her* 
self. She was not asleep, and clenching her hands togethci 


OLD LETTERS. 163 

80 that the nails left their impress in her flesh, sne 
whispered : 

“Dead ! Frederick Hetherton dead ! and does that e- 
lease me from my vow ? Do I wish to be released ? No, 
oh, no, a thousand times no ! And "'et when she was 
talking to me I felt as if I must scream it out. Oh, Mar- 
gery ; oh, my daughter, my daughter ! Dead ! And 
will his face haunt me as hers has — the sweet face of 
her who trusted me so ? There surely is a hell, and I 
have been in it this many a year ! Margery ! Margery !“ 

“Did you call me, mother? I thought I heard my 
name,” Margery said, opening the door and looking into 
*^he room. 

“No, no ; go away. You waken me when I want to 
sleep,” Mrs. La Rue said almost angrily, for the sight of 
that beautiful young face, and the sound of that voice 
nearly made her mad ; so Margery went away again, and 
left her mother alone to fight the demon of remorse, 
which the news of Frederick Hetherton’s death had 
aroused within her. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

OLD LETTERS. 

EINETTE was up and at her window on thf 
morning when Phil left Merrivale, and had ids 
seat been on the opposite side of the car from 
what it was, and had his powers of vision been 
long enough, and strong enough, he might have seen a 
pair of little white plump hands waving kisses and good- 
byes to him as the train shot under the bridge, round the 
curve, and off into the swamps and plains »f East Merri- 



i64 


CLD LETTERS. 


“I shall miss him sd mach,” Reinette thought. “He 
is just the nicest kind of a boy cousin a girl ever had 
We can go all lengths without the slightest danger of 
falling in love, for that would be impossible. Falling 
in love means getting married, and I have been educated 
too much like a Roman Catholic ever to marry my 
cousin. I would as soon marry my brother if I had one. 
I think it wicked, disgusting ! So, Mr. Phil, I am going 
t(j have just the best time flirting with you that ever a 
girl had. But what shall I do while you are gone.> Mr. 
Beresford is nice, but I can't flirt with him. He is too 
old and dignified, and has such a way of looking you 
down.” 

This mental allusion to Mr. Beresford reminded 
Reinette that he was to come that day for any papers of 
her father’s which she had in her possession, and that 
she must look them over first. Ringing for Pierre, she 
bade him bring her the small black trunk or box in 
which her fathei’s private papers were kept. Pierre 
obeyed, and was about leaving the room when Reinette 
bade him bring a lighted lamp and set it upon the hearth 
of the open fire-place. 

“ 1 may wish to burn some of them,” she said. 

Xhe lamp was brought and lighted, and then Queenie 
began her task, selecting first all the legal-looking docu- 
ments which she knew must pertain strictly to her 
father’s business. A few of these were in English 
and related to affairs in America, but the most were in 
French, and pertained to matters in France and Switzer- 
land, where her father held property. These Queenie 
knew Mr. Beresford could not decipher without her help, 
and so she went carefully over each document, finding 
nothing objectionable — nothing which a stranger might 
not see — nothing mysterious to her, though one paper 
might seem so to others. It was dated about twenty 
years before, and was evidently a copy of what was in- 
tended as an order setting apa’t a certain amount cf 


OLD LETTERS. 


165 

money, the interest to be paid semi-annually to one 
Christine Bodine in return for services rendered : the 
principal was placed in the hands of Messrs. Polignie, 
with instructions to pay ine interest as therein provided 
to the party named, who, in case of Mr. Hetherton’s 
death, was to receive the whole unless orders to the con- 
trary should be previously given. This paper Reinette 
read two or three times, wondering what were the ser- 
vices for which her old nurse received this annuity, and 
thinking, too, that here was a chance to find her. The 
money must have been paid, if she were living, and 
through the Messrs. Polignie she could trace her and 
bring her to America. 

“ I ought to have some such person living with me, I 
suppose,” she said, “ and I hate a maid always in my 
room and in my way.” 

The business papers disposed of and laid away for 
Mr. Beresfords’s inspection, Queenie turned next to the 
letters, of which there were not very mauy. Some from 
Mr. Beresford on business — one from her father’s 
mother, Mrs. General Hetherton, written to him when 
he was at Harvard, and showing that the writer was a 
lady in every thought and feeling, and one from herself, 
written to her father when he was in Algiers, and_ she 
only ten years old. It was a perfect child’s letter, full 
of details of life at the English school, and of Margery, 
who was with her there. 

“ Queeiiie’s first letter to me,” was written on the 
laoel, and the worn paper showed that it had been often 
read by the fond, proud father. 

Over this Reinette’s tears fell in torrents, for it told 
how much she had been loved, by the man whose hand 
she seemed to touch as she sorted the letters he had held 
so often. 

Putting aside the envelope which bore her childish 
superscription, she took up next a packet, which, to her 
aristocratic instincts, seemed out of place with those 


i66 


OLD LETTERS, 


other papers, in wtiich there lingered still a faint odor 
of the costly perfume her father always used. 

There were three letters inclosed in one large en- 
velope, on which was written “Papers pertaining to the 
Avignon business." Queenic knew her father had once 
owned some houses in Avignon, and taking first the 
largest letter in the package, she studied it carefully, not- 
ing that the paper was cheap, the handwriting cramped, 
and Chateau des Fleurs, to which it was directed, spelled 
wrong. “ This is not business — it is a letter which by 
mistake papa must have put in the wrong place, for it 
looks coarse^ it feels coarse^ and it smells coarse*' Queenie 
said, elevating her little nose as she caught a whiff of 
something very different from the delicate perfumery per- 
vading the other papers. “ Who sent this to papa, and 
what is it about ?" were the questions which passed rap- 
idly through her mind, as she held the worn, soiled missive 
between her thumb and fingers, and inspected it curiously. 

Once something prompted her to put it away from 
her sight, and never seek to know’ its contents. But 
woman’s curiosity overcame every scruple, and she at 
last drew the letter itself from the envelope. It was 
quite a large sheet, such as Reinette knew ladies seldom 
used, apd the four pages were closely written over, 
while there seemed to be something inside which added 
to its bulk. 

Turning first to the last page, Queenie glanced at the 
signature, and saw the two words “ From Tina,” but 
saw no more, for the something inside, which, slipping 
down, dropped upon her hand, around which it coiled 
like a living thing, v/ilh a grasp of recognition. I: wras 
a tress of long, blue-black hair, with just a tendency to 
wave perceptible all through it. 

Shaking it off as if it had been a snake, Queenie’s 
cheek paled a moment with a sensation she could not 
define, and then crimsoned with shame and resentment ; 
resentment for the dead mother, who, she felt, had in 


OLD LETTERS, 


167 


iftoine wav Deen wronged, and shame for the dead father 
to whom some other woman had dared to write, and 
send a lock of hair. 

“ Who is this Tina V' she said, with a hot gleam of 
anger in her black eyes, and how dare she send this to 
father — the bold, bad creature ! I hate her, with her 
vile black hair and she ground her little high heel 
upon the unconscious tress of hair, as if it had been 
Tina herself upon whom she was trampling. “I’ll burn 
it,” she said at last, “ but I’ll never touch it again.” 

And reaching for the tongs which stood upon the 
hearth, she took up the offending hair and held it in the 
lamp, watching it with a grim feeling of satisfaction, and 
yet with a sense of pain, as it hissed, and reddened, and 
charred in the flame, and writhed and twisted as if it had 
been something human from which the life was going 
out. 

Through the open window a breath of the sweet 
summer air came stealing in, and catching up a bit of the 
burnt, crisped hair carried it to Queenie’s white morning 
wrapper, where it clung tenaciously until she sliook it off 
as if it had been pollution. 

“Tina!” she exclaimed again. “Who I’d like to 
know is Tina?” Then remembering the surest way to 
find out who she was, was to read the letter, she took it 
up again, but hesitated a moment as if held back by some 
unseen influence ; hesitated as we sometimes hesitate 
when standing on the threshold of some great crisis or 
danger in our lives. “ If it is bad,” she said, “ I do not 
wish to think ill of him. Oh, father, it isnt bad : it vimi 
not be bad ; ” and the hot tears came fast, as the daughter 
who had believed her father so pure and good turned at 
last to the first page to see what was written there. 

It was dated at Marseilles twenty years before, and 
began : 

“Dear Mr. Hetherton, are you wondering why you 
do not hear from your little Tina? — ” 


i68 


OLD LETTERS. 


’‘Miss Hetherton, your grandmother is heie asking 
for you," came from the door outside at which Pierre 
stood knocking, and starting, as if caught in some guilty 
act, Reinette put the letter back in its envelope, and 
went down to meet her grandmother, who had come over 
for what she called a “real sit down visit," and brought 
her work with her. 

There was nothing now left for Reinette but to leave 
the letters and devote herself to her guest, who staid to 
lunch, so that it was not until afternoon that Queenie 
found an opportunity to resume the work of the morn- 
ing. Meanwhile her thoughts had been busy, and over 
and over again she had repeated to herself the words, 
“Your little Tina," until they had assumed for her a new 
and entirely different meaning from the one she had 
given them in the first moment of her discovery. There 
might be — nay, there was no shame attaching to them 
— no shame in that blue-black tress of hair which she 
could feel curling around her fingers still, and see as it 
hissed and writhed in the flame. The letter was written 
after her mother’s death. Her father was human — was 
like other men — and his fancy had been caught by some 
dark-haired girl of the lower class who called herself his 
“Little Tina;” she had undoubtedly bewitched him foi 
a time, so that he might have thought to make her his 
wife. His first marriage was what they called a mesal- 
liance; and here Queenie felt her cheeks flush hotly as if 
a wrong was done to her mother, but she meant none; 
she was trying to defend her father ; to save his memory 
from any evil doing. If he stooped once, he might again, 
and the last time Ti?ia was the object. He had meant 
honorably by her always, and tiring of her after a little 
had broken with her, as was often done by the best of men. 
Of all this Queenie thought as she talked with her grand- 
mother, answering her numberless questions of her life 
in France, and her plans for the future ; and by the 
time the good lady was gone and she free to go back 


OLD LETTERS, 


169 


to her work, she had changed her mind with regard to 
Tina’s letters, and a strange feeling of pity for the un- 
known girl had taken possession of her, making her 
shrink from reading her words of love, if they were 
innocent and pure, as she fain would believe them to be 
for the sake of her dead father ; and if they were not 
innocent and pure, “ I do not wish to know it. I should 
hate him — hate him always in his grave ! ” she said, as 
she picked up the letter and resolutely put it back in the 
envelope with the other two. 

Once she thought to burn them, as she had the hair 
and thus put temptation away forever ; but as often as 
she held them toward the lamp she had lighted again, as 
often something checked her, until a kind of super- 
stitious conviction took possession of her that she must 
not burn those letters writted by “ Little Tina.” 

“ But I will never, never read them,” she said ; and 
dropping on her knees, with the package held tightly in 
her hand, she registered a vow, that so long as she lived 
she would not seek to know what the letters contained 
unless circumstances should arise which would make 
the reading of them a necessity. 

This last condition came to her mind she hardly 
knew how or why, for she had no idea that any circum- 
stances could arise which would make the reading of 
the letters necessary. 

Searching through her trunks and drawers, she found 
four paper boxes of different sizes, and putting the 
envelope in the smallest of them, placed that in the next 
larger size, and so on, writing upon the cover of the 
last one. “To be burned without opening in case of my 
death.” Then tying the lid securely with a strong cord, 
she mounted upon a chair, and placed the package upon 
the highest shelf of the closet, where neither she nor any 
one could see it. 

“ There, little black-haired Tina,” she said, as she 
came down from the chair and out into her chamber, 


170 


OLD LETTERS. 


“year secret, if you had one with iny father^ is safe--* 
xioX,ioxyour sake, though, you bJue-black-haired jade !’* 
and Queenie set her foot down viciously : “ not for your 
sake, but for father’s, who migb* lave been silly enough 
to be caught by your pretty face, and to be flattered Ly 
you, for, of course, you ran after him, and widowers are 
fools. I’ve heard say.” 

Having thus settled the unknown Tina, and dismissed 
her from her mind for the time being at least, Queenie 
went back to the remaining package in the box — the 
one tied with a blue ribbon, and labeled ” Margaret’s 
letters.” 

“ Mother’s,” she said, softly, with a quick, gasping 
breath; “and now I shall know something of her at 
last and she kissed tenderly the time-worn envelope 
which held her mother’s letters. 

There were not many of them, and they had been 
written at long intervals, and only in answer to the 
husband’s, it would seem, for she complained in one 
that he waited so long before replying to her. Queenie 
felt no compunctions in reading these ; they were some- 
thing which belonged to her and she went through them 
rapidly, with burning cheeks, and eyes so full of tears 
at times that she could scarcely see the delicate hand- 
writing, so different from that other, the blue-black 
haired Tina’s as she mentally designated her. And as 
Queenie read, there came over her a feeling of resent- 
ment and anger toward the dead father, who, she felt 
sure, had often grieved and neglected the young wife, 
who, thougli she made no complaint, wrote so sadly and 
dejectedly, and begged him to come home, and not stay 
so long in those far-off lands, with people whom Mar- 
garet evidently did not like. 

“Dear Frederick,” she wrote from Rome, “please 
come to me ; I am so lonely without you, and 
the days are so long, with only Christine for company, 
for I seldom go out excepV to drive on the ^incian or 


OLD LETTERS. 


171 

Campagna, and so see scarcely see any one. Christine 
is a great comfort to me, and anticipates my wishes 
almost before I know that I have them myself. She is 
as faithful and tender as if she were my mother, instead 
of maid, and if I should die you must always be 
kind to her for what she has been to me. But oh, I do 
so long for you, and 1 think I could make you very 
happy. You used to love me in dear old Merrivale. 
How often I dream of home and the shadowy woods by 
the pond where we used to walk together, and the 
moonlight sails on the river when we rowed in among 
the white Ulies, and you said I was lovelier and sweeter 
than they. You loved me then ; do you love me now as 
well ? I have sometimes feared you did not ; feared 
something had come between us which was weaning you 
from me. Don’t let it, Frederick ; put it away from 
you, whatever it may be, and let me be your Queen, 
your Daisy, your Margery again ; for I do love you, 
my husband, more than you can guess, and I want your 
love now when I am so sick, and tired, and lonely. 
Christine is waiting to post this for me, and so I must 
close with a kiss right there where I make the star (^.) 
Put your lips there, Frederick, where mine have been 
and then we shall have kissed each other. Truly, lov 
ingly, and longingly, your tired, sick Margery.” 

“ Margery ? That was, then her pet name, the name I 
like the best in all the world, because of my Margery,” 
Queenie cried, as her tears fell fast upon the letter, which 
seemed to her like a voice from the dead. “Poor 
mother, you were not so very happy, were you t Why did 
you die? If I only had you now, how I would love and 
pet you,” she said, as she passionately kissed the place 
W’hich her mother’s lips had touched, and her father’s, too, 
she hoped, for how could he resist that touching appeal ? 
He must have loved the writer of that letter, and yet there 
was a cloud between the husband and wife which cast its 
shadow over their child and made her weep bitterly as 


OLD LETTERS. 


she wonrie/ed what it was which had crept in between her 
father and his tired, sick Margery. 

Was it the blue-black haired Tina she said, as she 
clenched her fists together, and then beat the air with 
them, as she would have beaten the blue-black-haired 
Tina had she been there with her. “ Poor mother,” she 
said again, “so tiled and sick, with no one to care for 
her but Christine, who was so good to her. I know now 
why father settled that money on her; it was because she 
was so kind and faithful to mother, who knows now, 
perhaps, that father did love her more than she thought ; 
for he did, I am sure he did ; and he loved me, too, and 1 
believed him so noble and true. Oh, father, father, forgive 
me, but I have lost something. I cannot put it in words — 
I don’t know what I mean,” and stooping over the pack- 
age which held her mother’s letters, Reinette cried out 
loud, with a bitter sense of something lost from her 
father’s memory which had been very sweet to her. “ Oh, 
how much has happened since I came to America, and 
how long it seemn, and how old I feel, and there is no 
one to tell it to — no one to talk with about it.” 

Just then there was a second knock at the door, and 
Pierre announced Mr. Beresford waiting in the library. 
He was a prompt business man, and had come for the 
papers, Reinette knew, and, bathing her flushed cheeks, 
and crumpling her wavy hair more than it was already 
crumpled, she went down to meet him, taking the papers 
with her, and trying to seem natural and gay, as if no 
tress of blue-black hair had been burned in her room, 
no letters from Tina were hidden away in her closet, and 
no sting when she thought of her father was hurting her 
cruelly. 

Queenie was a perfect little actress, and her face was 
bright with smiles as she entered the room and greeted 
Mr. Feresford, who, being a close observer, saw that 
something had been agitating her, and guessed that it 
was the examining of her father’s papers, which natu- 


OLD LETTERS. 


173 


mlly would bring back her sorrow so freshly. There 
was a great pity in his heart for this lonely girl, and his 
manner was very sympathetic and gentle as he took the 
box from her and said : 

“ I am afraid this has been too much for you.” 

Instantly the great tears gathered in her eyes, but did 
not fall, and only made her all tlie sweeter and prettier, 
as she sat down beside him and said : 

“ I must read some of tliem over for you, for I don't 
believe you understand French very well, do you?” 

“ Not at all,” he replied, glad to be thought ignorant 
of even the monosyllable out, if by this means he could 
sit close to her and watch her dimpled hands sorting 
out the papers, and hear her silvery, bird-like voice, 
with its soft accent, translating what was written in them 
into English. 

Especial pains did she take to make him understand 
about the money paid to Christine Bodine, and why it 
was paid. 

“ She was so kind to mother, who requested him to 
care for her. I’ve been reading all about it in mother’s 
letters to him,” she said, without lifting her eyes to his 
face, for in spite of herself and her avowed confidence in 
her father’s honor, there was in her heart a feeling of 
degradation when she remembered Tina, as if the shame, 
if shame there were, was in some way attaching to her, 
and robbing her of some of her self-respect. 

But Mr. Beresford had no suspicion of Tina, and onl'’’ 
thought how lovely Queenie was and what a remarkable 
talent for understanding business she developed, as they 
went over the papers together and formed a pretty fair 
estimate of the value of the Hetherston estate. 

“Why there is over half a million, if all this is good,” 
she said, looking up at him with pleased surprise. “ And 
I am so glad, for I like a great deal of money. I have 
always had it, and should not know what to do without 
it. I want a great deal for myself, and mere for other 


174 


OLD LETTERS. 


people. I am going to give grandma some, because — 
and Queenie hesitated a little, “ because 1 was mean to 
her at the staticui when she claimed me ; and I’m going 
to give some to x\unt Lydia, so she can afford to sell out 
her business v/hich is so obnoxious to Anna, and if that 
girl down at the Vineyard proves to be my Margerv, 1 
shall give her money to buy Aunt Lydia out, and then I 
shall have her all to myself, and you’ll be falling in love 
with her — remember that! You’ll be in love with Mar> 
gery La Rue the second time you see her ! ” 

“Margery La Rue! Who is she?’’ Mr. Beresford 
asked ; and tiien came the story of Margery, mixed with 
so extravagant praises of the young lady that Mr. Beres- 
ford began to feel an interest in her, although the idea of 
falling in love with her was simply preposterous. 

Sensible as he was, Mr. Beresford had a great deal of 
foolish pride, and would have scouted the thought of a 
dressmaker ever becoming Mrs. Arthur Beresford. That 
iady was to be more like this dark-eyed fairy beside him, 
who chattered on, telling him what she meant to do with 
her half million, which it seemed was literally burning 
ner fingers. She would give some to everbody who was 
poor and needed it, some to all the missionaries and 
churches, and even some to him, if he was ever straitened 
and wanted it. 

Mr. Beresford smiled, and thanked her, and said he 
would remember her offer ; and then she added : 

“T will give some to Phil now, if he wants it, to carry 
cn his jusiness. Does it take much money, Mr. Beres- 
ford? What is his business — his profession? I do not 
think I know.” 

“I don’t think he has any,” Mr. Beresford replied; 
and Reinet.e exclaimed : 

“No business ! no profession ! That’s bad ! Every 
young man ought to do something, father used to say. 
Pray, what does Phil do ! How does he pass his time?” 

“ By making himself generally useful and agreeable.” 


OLD LETTERS. 


175 


Mr. Bcresford said, and in his voice there was a tinge of 
irony, which Queenie detected at once, and instantly 
flamed up in defense of her cousin. 

“Of course he makes himself useful and agreeable- 
more agreeable than any person I ever saw. I have only 
known him a day or two, and yet I like him better than 
anybody in the world except Margery.” 

“Phil ought to feel complimented with your opinion 
which, I assure you, is well merited,” Mr. Beresford 
said, while a horrid feeling of jealousy took possession 
of him. 

Why would girls always prefer an indolent, easy- 
going, good-for-nothing chap like Phil Rossiter, to an 
active, energetic, throughgoing man like himself? Not 
that he had heretofore been troubled by what the girls 
preferred, for he cared nothing for them in the abstract ; 
but this restless, sparkling French girl was different, and 
he felt every nerve in his body thrill with a strange feel- 
ing of ecstasy when at parting she laid her, soft warm 
hand on his, and looking up at him with her bright, 
earnest eyes, said to him : 

“ Now you will write at once to Messrs. Polignie and 
inquire about Christine ; and I shall write, too ; for I 
must find her and bring her here to live with me. Grand- 
ma says I ought to have somebody — some middle-aged, 
respectable woman, as a kind of guardian — but, ugh ! I 
hate guardians !” 

“ Oh, I hope not !” Mr. Beresford said, laughingly, 
managing to retain the hand laid in his so naturally. 
“In one sense I am your guardian, and I hope you don t 
hate me 

“ Certaiely not,” Reinette said. “I think you are 
very nice. You are father’s friend, and he said I must 
like you, and tell you everything, and I do like you ever 
so much, though not the way I do Phil I like him be- 
cause he’s so good and funny, and my cousin, and — weiij 
because he is Phil.” 


176 


THE LITTLE LADY 


“ Happy Phil ! I wish I was good and funny, and 
your cousin ! ” Mr. Beresford said, as he bade her good- 
afternoon and rode away. 

“ I hope he is not falling in love with me, for that 
would be dreadful. I wouldn’t marry him any sooner 
than I would Phil. He is too old, and dignifieJ, and 
poky,” Reinette thought, as she watched him going down 
the hill, while he was mentally registering a vow to enter 
the lists and compete with the young man who was so 
much liked because he was Phil. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE LITTLE LADY OF HETHERTON. 

ITHIN a week after Phil’s departure the whole 
town was full of her, and rumor said she was 
running a wild career with no one to advise 
or check her except Mr. Beresford, who 
seemed as crazy as herself. Everybody thought her 
wonderfully bright, and fresh, and pretty, but her ways 
astonished the sober people of Merrivale, who, neverthe- 
less, were greatly interested and amused with watching 
her as she developed phase after phase of her variable 
nature — visiting Mr. Beresford at his office two or three 
times a day, ostensibly to translate foreign letters and 
papers for him, but really, it was said by the gossips, to 
see the man himself ; galloping off miles and miles into 
the country on her spirited horse, with the little old 
Frenchman in attendance; worrying Mrs. Jerry by 
having chocolate in her room in the morning, breakfast- 
ing at twelve, dining at six, with as much ceremony as 
if a dozen people were seated at the table instead of one 



OF HETHERTON, 


177 


lone girl, who sometimes never touched the dishes pre- 
pared with so much care — dining, too, in all sons of 
places as the fancy took her; on the north piazza, and on 
the south piazza; giving her money away by the hun- 
dreds to the Fergusons, and by the tens, and fives, and 
ones to anybody asking for it ; sinking a little fortune 
on the grounds at Hetherton Place, which she was entirely 
metamorphosing, with fifteen or twenty men at work 
there all the time, while she superintended them, and 
gave them lemonade or root-beer two dr three times a 
day, as an incentive to swifter labor. 

Such was the state of affairs when Phil, improving 
the very first opportunity for leave of absence, came 
back to Merrivale. It was 10 a.m. when he reached the 
station, and exactly half-past ten to a minute when he 
found himself at Hetherton Place, his hand locked in 
that of Queenie, who in her big garden hat, with trowel, 
and pruning-knife, led him all over the grounds, where 
the fifteen men were at work, pointing out her improve- 
ments, and asking what he thought of them. And Phil, 
who had promised his mother to check his cousin if he 
found her going on recklessly, as they had heard from 
Anna, proved a very flunky, and instead of checking her, 
enftered heart and soul into her plans, and even made 
suggestions as to how they could be improved. So use- 
ful, in fact, did he make himself, and so much skill and 
taste did he display, that Queenie forgot entirely to chide 
him for his lack of a profession. Indeed, she was rather 
glad than otherwise that he had no profession, as it left 
him free to be with her all the time and to become at 
last the superintendent of the whole, with this difierence, 
however, that while he directed the men, Queenie direct- 
ed him and made him her very slave. 

Queenie never shrank from anything, but plunged her 
white hands into the dirt up to her wrists, while Phil 
took off his coat and worked patiently at her side, trans- 
planting a rose-bush or geranium to one place in the 
*8 


178 


THE LITTLE LADY 


morning, and in the evening to another, if so tile fancy 
took his mistress. She could not always tell where she 
wanted a thing until she studied the effect of certain 
positions, and then, if she did not like it, if it did not 
harmonize with the picture she was forming, it must be 
moved, she said. And so the moving and changii'.g 
went on, and people marveled to see how rapidly vvii:.t 
had first seemed chaos and confusion began to assume 
proportions until the grounds bade fair to become moie 
beautiful and artistic than any place which had ever been 
Seen in the county. What had been done before Queenie’s 
arrival was for the most part unchanged, but the remain- 
der of the grounds were entirely overturned. The plateau 
and summer-house, on which Queenie had set her heart, 
wore made, and the terraces, and the new walks, and the 
pasture land, west of the house, was robbed of its green- 
sward for turf to cover the terraces and plateau, which 
were watered twice each day until the well and cis- 
terns gave out, and then the heavens, as if in sympathy 
with the work, poured out plentiful showers, and so, not 
withstanding that it was summer, the turf, and the shrubs, 
and the vines, and flowers were kept green and fresh, and 
scarcely stopped their growing. Everything went beauti- 
fully Queenie said, as she issued her orders, and, busy 
as a bee, worked from morning till night, with Phil 
always in attendance, while even Mr. Beresford at last 
caught the fever, and went himself into the business of 
planting and transplanting, and working in the dirt. 
TJie H ether to7i gardeners the people called the two young 
men, Phil being the head and Mr. Beresford the sub^ but 
little did they care for the merry-making, so long as that 
bright, sparkling girl worked with them, and then at 
night rewarded them with a bouquet, which she fasten- 
ed to their button-hcles, standing up on tiptoe to do it, 
a looking up at them with eyes which nearly drove 
them crazy. 

Nor was Hetherton Place the only spot where 


OF HFTHFRTOiV, 


179 


Queenie was busy. A few days after Phil went to the 
sea-shore there had come to her a letter from Margery, 
who wrote : 

“ My Darling Queenie. — You do not know how 
surprised and deligiited I was to hear that you were in 
America, or how sorry I was to hear of your loss. Yoa 
must be so lonely and sad, alone in a strange country. 
What is Merrivale like ? and do you think it would be 
a good place for me? Is it not funny that I had thought 
to go there, and have actually written to a Mrs. Fer- 
guson, who turns out to be your aunt ? But she asks 
more for her business than I feel able to pay, and so the 
plan has been abandoned for the present. But I must 
see you, and, remembering all your kindness in the 
years past, you will not think me intrusive when I tell 
you, that before the summer is gone I am coming to 
Merrivale, just to look into your dear eyes again, and 
see if you are changed. I like your aunt and cousins ; 
they are genuine ladies, and I am glad they belong to 
you.’* 

The first thing Queenie did after reading this letter, 
w’as to mount her horse and gallop in hot haste to the 
village, where she astonished Mrs. L37^dia Ferguson by 
offeiing her more for her business than she had de- 
manded of Miss La Rue. 

“ It is my Margery — my friend, and I am going to 
have her here, if I turn my own house into a dressmaker’s 
shop,” she said, and she talked so fast, and gesticulated 
so rapidly, that Mrs. Lydia grew quite bewildered, but 
managed to comprehend that a price was offered her 
which would be well for her to accept, as it might never 
be offered her again. 

Anna, too, was all eagerness to “ get out of the vile 
thing and be somebody,” as she expressed it, and so the 
bargain was closed, and Mrs. Lydia was to retire at once 


i8o 


THE LITTLE LADY 


into the privacy and respectability of private life ; the 
obnoxious sign was to be taken from the front window, 
and Miss Anna was to be merely the daughter of a grocer 
which she considered quite an ascent in the social scale. 

Mrs. Lydia did not wish to sell her house, nor 
Queenie to buy it. 

She had heard there was a charming little cottage on 
Maple Avenue, for sale, and she swooped down upon the 
owner like a hurricane, asking him what his terms were, 
and if he would vacate at once. 

“You see I wish to get him out immediately, for I 
mean to make it just like a palace for Margery,” she said 
to her grandmother, who tried to restrain the reckless girl 
telling her she was going on at a ruinous rate, and that, 
of herself she could not transact business, until she was 
of age. 

“But Mr. Beresford can transact it for me, and I shall 
have it,” she said ; and she took Mr. Beresford by storm 
and compelled him to make an arrangement whereby 
the cottage and her aunt’s business came into her posses- 
sion. Then she wrote to her friend : 

“You Dear Old Darling Margery : — I do know 
just how surprised and glad you were to hear that I was 
in America, for wasn’t I just as glad to know that you 
were near me when I thought you in Nice or Italy. 
Why didn’t you answer my letter, you naughty girl ? I 
wrote you six and only had two in return. It is just 
like a story, isn’t it — our being together in America? 
And, Margie, my grandmother is not that English duch- 
ess I used to talk so much about, but a real, live Yankee 
woman, of the very Yankee-est kind, red, and fat, and good, 
and calls me Rennet^ and wears purple gloves — or she 
d^d till I coaxed her into some black ones, which she 
thinks are not very dressy. And you will like her ever 
so much, and you are coming to Merrivale to live at 


OF B ETHER TON, 


i8i 

once, now, risrhtaway. So, pack up your things as soon 
as you read this. I hav'e bought that business for you 
of Mrs. Ferguson, who is my aunt, or rather the wife ot 
my mother’s brother ; and she has a daughter Anna, who 
is my cousin, and very stunning and stvell. That last is 
slang, wliich I have learned in America of Phil, who is 
another cousin, and a Ferguson, too : or rather his mother 
was, which is the same thing. There are a great many 
Fergusons, you see ; but then there are Fergusons anu 
Fergusons. But you will learn all this when you come. 
I have a pretty little cottage engaged, with a bit of fresh 
greensward in front, and the loveliest old-fashioned gar- 
den at the side, with June pinks, and roses, and tiger- 
lilies, and a nice bed of tansy, I like tansy, don’t you ? There 
was a patch of it at dear old Chateau des Fleurs. Then 
there are two front rooms for the work, and a sitting and 
dining room back ,with the kitchen, and three chambers 
communicating with each other. One of these I shall 
fit up with blue for you ; it will just suit your lovely 
complexion and eyes ; the other is scarlet, for your 
mother, who is dark ; and the third — well, that is to be 
mine when I stay with you nights, as I intend doing 
often. But I can’t have the same color as your mother, 
so I shall take pink, which will make me look just like 
a — a — nigger. That’s another word I caught from Phil. 
I wish he would come back. Tell him so, please. 

“And now, Margery, come as soon as you can 
And don’t be silly about my buying the cottage and 
business for you. It is only a little bit of payment on 
the big sum I owe you for that sacrifice you were ready 
to make for me. How well I remember that day, and 
how plainly I can see you now, as you went up to the 
master, with your face as white as paper, and your eyes 
so pitiful and appealing as they looked at me, and yet sc 
full of love. And I, the coward, slrit my eyes, and 
clenched my fists, and said to myself just as fast as 1 
could, ‘ Nasty beast ! nasty beast ! till the first blow fell. 


i 82 


THE LITTLE LAEV 


which hurt me more than It did you, for it cut right intc 
my conscience, and there has been a little smart there 
ever since, while your dear hand is just as white and 
hiir as if that vile old man’s ferrule had never reddened 
and wounded it. Splendid rxfj Margery ! I want to hug 
you this minute ! 

And — oh, Margie, don’t think I have forgotten 
papa, because I have not said more of him ; for I 
haven’t, and there is a thought of him and a little moan 
in my heart for him all the time. No matter what I am 
doing, or how gay I seem, I never forget that he is dead, 
and that there is nobody to love me now but you, who 
seem so near to me, because you knew of the old 
life at home now gone forever. Answer at once, and say 
when I may expect you.” 

To this letter Margery replied within a few days, 
thanking Queenie for her generous interest, but saying 
she could not accept so much from her ; she should 
come to Merrivale with her mother as soon as they 
could arrange matters where they were, but she should 
insist upon paying rent for the cottage, and also upon 
paying for the business. 

“ I can do that in a short time,” she wrote, “ if I have 
work, and I shall be happier to be independent even of 
you, my darling. Besides I do not think the Rossiters 
and Fergusons would like you to do so much for a 
stranger. I am nothing to them, you know, except their 
dressmaker — ” 

“ I think her a very sensible girl. I could not respect 
her, if she were willing to receive so much from you,” 
Mr. Beresford said when, Queenie read him Margery’s 
letter; whereupon Queenie flew into a passion, and 
said he did not understand — did not appreciate the 
nature o’f the friendsliip between herself and Margery ; 
adding that she should never tell Margery how much she 


OF HE THER TOH 1 83 

paid her Aunt Lydia, and that she v/oi la never take any 
ent and she should furnish the house herself. 

And she did, and, with Phil f'-' help her after he came, 
she accomplished more at the cottage and at Hetherton 
Place than any ten ordinary women could have accom- 
plished in the same length of time. Every day she 
managed to spend two or three hours at the cottage, 
which. wit h plenty of money and perfect taste, was soon 
trans.ormed into a little gem of a house. It is true there 
was nothing expensive in it in the way of furniture, ex- 
cept the upright Steinway, which Queenie insisted upon ; 
but everything was so well chosen and so artistically ar- 
ranged, that the whole effect was like a lovely picture, 
and the villagers went to see it, and wondered what this 
Margery could be that Miss Hetherton was doing so 
much for her. 

“ She is only a dressmaker, after all,” Miss Anna said, 
with a toss of her head, as she sat in what had been her 
mother’s work-room entertaining a visitor and discussing 
the expected Margery. 

Anna had lost no time in removing the sign from the 
window, and had even carried out her threat of splitting 
and burning it up, thinking thus to wipe out a past which 
she foolishly thought had been a disgrace, because of her 
mother’s honest labor. The work-room, too, had been 
dismantled of everything pertaining to the obnoxious 
dress-making, and Mrs. Lydia, deprived of her occupa- 
tion, found the time hanging heavily upon her hands, for 
Etie had no taste for housekeeping, and could not at once 
iiuerest herself in it. Besides, she missed the excitement 
of tlie people coming in and going out, and missed the 
gossip they brought, and almost every hour of her life 
repented that to gratify her daughter she had been per- 
suaded to retire from business and set up for a lady. 

Anna, on the contrary, enjoyed it immensely, and 
held her head a good deal higher, and frizzed her haii 
raor*? than ever, and were her best dresses- every day, and 


184 


ARRIVALS IN MERRIVALB. 


spoke slightingly of M::rgery La Rue as only a dress- 
maker, and told half a dozen of the neighbors, confiden- 
tially, that she thought her cousin Reinette fast and queer, 
though she supposed it was the French of her, to go on, as 
she did, with Phil and Mr. Beresford, both of whom were 
making fools of themselves. For her part she could see 
nothing attractive in her whatever, except that she was 
bright, and witty, and small, and tall men, as a rule, liked 
little women. To Queenie herself, however, she was 
sweetness itself, and as the latter never heard of her ill- 
natured remarks, there was a show of friendship between 
the two girls, and Anna was frequently at Hetherton 
Place, where the envy of her nature found ample food to 
feed upon, as she contrasted Reinette's surroundings 
with her own. 


CHAPTER XX. 

ARRIVALS IN MERRIVALE. 

OR three or four years Merrivale had boasted 
of a weekly paper, and in the column of 
“ Personals ” the citizens read one Thursday 
morning that the Rossiters were coming 
home on Friday, and that Mrs. and Miss La Rue, the 
French ladies who were to succeed Mrs. Ferguson in her 
business, were also expected on that day. Everybody 
was glad the Rossiters were coming, for Merrivale was 
always gayer when they were home, as they were hos- 
pitable people, and entertained a great deal of company. 
Usually they brought guests with them, but this time no 
one was coming, Phil said, except a cousin ot nis 
father’s— -Hn old bachelor, who rejoiced in the high- 



ARRIVALS IN MERRIV 4 LE. 185 

sounding name of Lord Seymour Rossiter, though to do 
him justice, he usually signed himself Major L. S. Ros- 
siter, as he had once been in the army. He was very 
rich, Phil said, and rather good-looking, and he laugh- 
ingly bade Queenie be prepared to surrender at once to 
his charms. But Queenie cared little for Lord Rossitei 
or any other lord just then. All her thoughts and in- 
terests were centered in the one fact that Margery was 
coming, and she spent the whole of Friday morning at 
the cottage, seeing that everything was in readiness, and 
literally filling it with flowers from her garden and 
greenhouse. 

“I wish her to have a good nrst impression,” she 
said to Phil, who was with her as she inspected the 
rooms for the last time before going home to the early 
dinner she had ordered that day, so as to be at the station 
in time. 

The train was due at six o’clock, and, a few minutes 
before the hour, the Rossiter carriage with Phil in it, 
and the Hetherton carriage with Rcinette in it, drew up 
side by side at the rear of the depot. 

Reinette was full of excitement and expectation, and 
made a most lovely picture in her black dress of some 
soft, guazy material, with knots of double-faced scarlet 
and cream ribbons twisted in with the bows and loops 
of satin — a scarlet tip on her black hat, and a mass of 
white illusion wound round it, and fastened beneath her 
chin. 

Phil thought her perfectly charming as she v/alked 
restlessly up and down the platform, waiting for the 
first sound which should herald the approaching train. 
It came at last — a low whistle in the distance, growing 
gradually louder and shriller, until the train shot under 
the bridge, and the great engine puffed and groaned a 
moment before the station, and then went on its way, 
leaving two distinct groups of people to be stared at by 
the lookers-on. One, the Rossiters and a middle-aged 


i86 


ARRIVALS IN MERR2VALE, 


luaa, dressed in the extreme of fashion, wiih eye-<^Iassea 
on his nose and a little slender cane in his hand, which 
he twisted n-ervously, while, with the other members of 
his party, he loo^'ted curiously at the second group far- 
ther down the platform— ihe three French ladies, who 
spoke their native tongue so volubly, and were so de- 
monstrative and expressive in their gestures and tones. 
Mrs La Rue was in black, with a strange expression on 
her tace and in her eyes, as she watched the two young 
girls. 

The moment Margery alighted, Reinette had pre- 
cipitated herself into her arms, exclaiming : 

“You dear old Margie ! you have come at last;” while 
iiss after kiss was showered upon the girl, whose golden 
hair gleamed brightly in the sunlight, and whose blue 
eyes were full of tears as she returned the greeting. 

Suddenly remembering Mrs. La Rue, Queenie 
turned toward her, and, offering her hand very cordially 
utterly ignored the fact that she had ever seen her before 
by saying : 

T think you are Mrs. La Rue, and I am happy to 
meet you, because you bring me Margie.” 

“ Thanks. You are very kind,” Mrs. La Rue replied, 
with a tone which a stranger might have thought cole! 
and constrained but for the face, which had something 
eager and almost hungry in its expression, as the great 
black eyes were riveted upon Queenie whose hand the 
woman held in a tight clasp until .t was wrenched 
away, as the girl turned next to the Rossiters. 

“Wait, Margie,” she said, in passing. “Our carriage 
is here, and I am going to take you to your new home.” 

Then hurrying on she went up to her aunt, and 
cousins, and the major, who had been watching her curi- 
ously, and mentally commenting upon her. 

“Quite too much sentiment and gush for me. I \\k^ 
more manner; more dignity,” he thought, while Mrs 
Rossiter saw only her sister’s cliild, and Ethel and Grar 


ARRIVALS A 2 ' MERRIVALE. 187 

felt a little disappointed with regard to t.*e beauty, of 
which they had heard so much. 

But when she came toward them, her head erec% her 
cheeks flushed, and eyes shining like diamonds and 
seeming almost to speak as they danced, and laughed, 
and sparkled, they changed their minds, and when the 
great tears came with a rush, as she threw herself into 
Mrs. Rossiter’s arms, exclaiining, “ Oh auntie, I am going 
to love you so much, and you must love me with all my 
faults, for I have neither father nor mother, now,” they 
espoused her cause at once, and never for a moment 
W'avered in their allegiance to her. Giving each of them 
a hand, and kissing them warmly, she said, laugliingly : 

“You are all alike, aren’t you? tall and fair, and blue- 
eyed — so different from me, who am nothing but a little 
black midget.” 

“ That’s the Ferguson of us,” Phil said, with a meaning 
smile, which brought a flush to his sister’s cheeks, and 
made Queenie laugh, as she retorted : 

“ I wish I were a Ferguson then, if that would make 
me white.” 

“ A dused pretty girl, after all,” the major thought, as 
she beamed on him her brightest smile when Phil intro- 
duced her, and then the parties separated, and returning 
to Margery, Queenie led her in triumph to the carriage, 
while Mrs. La Rue followed after them. 

Her black gauze vail was drawn closely over her 
face, but both girls caught a sound like a suppressed 
sigh, and turning to her, Margery said : 

“ I believe mother is homesick, and pining F»-ance 
she seems so low spirited.” 

“ Oh, I hope not. America is a great deal better than 
France, and Merrivale is best of all,” Queenie said, glanc- 
ing at Mrs. La Rue, and noting for the first time how 
pale and tired she looked, noticing, too, that she was all 
in black, though not exactly in ino irning. 

“ She has lost some friend, pernaps,” she thought, and 


i88 


ARmVAIS AT 3fERRiyALE 


then chatted on with Margery, unmindful of the woman 
who leaned wearily back among the soft cushions of the 
luxurious carriage. 

Of what was she thinking ? — the tired, sad woman, as 
the carriage wound up the hill, across the common, past 
the church where Margaret Ferguson used to say her 
prayers, and past the yellowish-brown house which 
Queenie pointed out as her Aunt Lydia’s, and where, on 
the door-step Anna sat fanning herself, rejoicing that she 
was now a grocer’s daughter. It would be hard to fathom 
her thoughts, which were straying far back over the 
broad gulf which lay between the present and the days 
of her girlhood. And yet nothing escaped her, from 
Anna Ferguson on the door-step to the handsome house 
and grounds at the Knoll, which Queenie said was ,hei 
Aunt Rossiter’s house ; but when at last the cottage was 
reached, and she alighted from the carriage, she was so 
weak and faint that Margery led her into the house, and 
even Queenie was alarmed at the death-like pallor of hei 
face, and stood by her while Margery hunted through her 
bags for some restorative. 

“You are very tired, aren’t you?” Queenie said, 
kindly, to her, at the same time laying her hand gently 
upon her head, for her bonnet had been removed. 

At the touch of those cool, slender fingers and the 
sound of the pitying voice Mrs. La Rue gave way 
entirely, and grasping both Queenie’s hands, covered 
them with tears and kisses ; as she said : 

“ Forgive me, Queenie, and let me call you once by 
that pet name ; let me thank you for all you have done for 
us — for Margery and me. God bless you, Queenie ! 
God bless you !” 

“ Mother, mother, you frighten Miss Hetherton !’* 
Margery said, coming quickly forward, and guessing 
from the expression of Queenie’s face, that so much 
demonstration was distasteful to her. ‘You are tired 
and nervous ; let me take you up stairs, she continue i 


JlRJRIVALS AT MERRIVALE, 


189 

as she led the unresisting woman to her room, where 
she made her lie down upon the couch, and then went 
back to Queenie, who was standing in the door-way and 
beating her little foot impatiently, as she thought : 

“I wonder what makes that woman act so? The 
first time I ever saw her she stared at me as if she would 
eat me up ; and just now there was positively something 
frigiitful in her eyes as they looked up at me ; I do not 
believe I like her.” 

Just here Marger}^ appeared, apologizing for her 
mother, who, she said was wholly overcome with all 
Queenic's kindness to them. 

“Yes, I know. I do it for youT Queenie said, a 
little petulantly, for she did not care at ail if Margery, 
knew of her aversion to her mother. 

It was time now for her to go if she would see her 
cousins, and promising Margery to look in upon her in 
the morning and bring her a pile of dresses which 
needed repairing, she entered her carriage, and was 
driven to the Knoll, v/here the family were just sitting 
down to supper. 

Taking a seat with them, Queenie talked and laughed, 
and sparkled, and shone, until the room seemed full of 
her, and the bewildered major could have sworn there 
were twenty pairs of eyes flashing upon him instead of 
one, while Ethel and Grace held their breath and 
watched her as the expression of her bright face changed 
with every new gesture of ner hands and turn of her head. 

“ She is so bright and beautiful, and different from 
anything we ever saw,” they thought, while Mrs. Rossi- 
ter, though no less fascinated than her daughters, was 
conscious of a feeling of disappointment because she 
could discover no resemblance to her sister in her sister’s 
child. She was unmistakably a Hetherton, though with 
another look in her dark face and wonderful eyes which 
puzzled Mrs. Rossiter as she sat watching her with con- 
stantly increasing interest, and listening to her gay bad- 


190 


ARRIVALS AT MERRIVALE. 


Phil and the major, the latter of whom seemed half afraid 
of her, and was evidently ill at ease when her eyes light- 
ed upon him. 

Supper being over Reinette arose to go, saying to her 
aunt and cousins : 

“ I shall expect you to dine with me to-morrow at six 
o’clock. It is to be a family party, but Major Rossiter 
is included in the invitation. I am going now to ask 
grandma and Aunt Lydia. Will you go with me, 
Phil ?” 

They found Grandma Ferguson weeding her flower 
borders in front of her house, with her cap and collar ofl, 
and her spotted calico dress open at the throat. 

“ It is too hot to be harnessed up with fixin’s,” she 
s iid, and when Reinette, who did not like the looks of 
her neck, suggested that a collar or ruffle did not greatly 
add to one’s discomfort in warm weather and gave a 
finish to one’s dress, she replied : “Law, child, it don’t 
matter an atom what I wear. Everybody knows Peggy 
Ferguson.” Reinette gave a little deprecating shrug and 
then delivered her invitation, which was accepted at 
once, grandma saying, “ She could come early so as to 
have a good visit before dinner, though she presumed 
Mary and the gals wouldn’t be there till the last 
minit.” 

Reinette gave another expressive shrug, and drove 
next to her Aunt Lydia’s, where she found that lady 
jjtiated in the parlor with a tired look on her face as if 
doing nothing did not agree with her, while Anna was 
drumming the old worn-out piano which, having been 
second-hand when it was bought, was somethin^: dreadful 
to hear. 

“ Oh, Phil, you here ?” she said turning on the music- 
stool. “ I was going by and by to see the girls. I hope 
they are well. Who was that dandyish-looking old man 
with them, sitting up as straight as a ramrod, with eye- 


ARRIVALS AT MERRIVALE. 


191 

glasses on his nose ? Have they pickea up a beau some- 
where ?” 

Phil explained that the dandy' sh-looking old man 
was his father’s cousin, Major Lord Seymour Rossiter, 
from New York, where he had for twenty years occupied 
the same rooms at the same hotel. 

^‘Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him ; rich as a Jew, and an 
oid bach,” Anna said. “ Yes, I’ll come to dinner, Queenie, 
and mother too, I suppose, but I’ve no idea you’ll get 
father there — he doesn’t like visiting much.” 

In her heart Reinette cared but little whether her 
uncle came or not. His presence would add nothing to 
her dinner ; but something in Anna’s manner awoke 
within her a spirit of opposition, and sent her to the 
grocery where her Uncle Tom sold codfish, and molasses, 
and eggs, and where she found him in his shirt sleeves, 
seated upon a barrel outside the door, smoking a tobacco 
pipe. He did not get up, nor stop his smoking, except 
as he was obliged to take his pipe from his mouth while 
he talked to Reinette, who gave him the invitation, and 
urged his acceptance as warmly as if the success of her 
dinner depended upon it. 

” He was much obliged to her,” he said but he didn’t 
think he should go. He wasn’t used to the quality, and 
hadn’t eaten a meal of victuals outside his own house in 
years except at Thanksgivin’ time when he had to go 
to his mother’s.” 

“ And that is just the reason you will come to-morrow,’’ 
Queenie said, coaxingly. “ It is my first family party, 
and you will not be so uncivil as to refuse. I shall ex- 
pect you without fail,” and with a smile and flash of her 
eyes, which stirred even staid Tom Ferguson a little, Rein- 
ette drove away, saying to Phil, who was going to ride 
home with her and then walk back to the Knoll : I hope 
he z£//7/come, for I could see that Anna did not wish him to. 
Such airs as she has taken on since she split up that sign 
and quit the business, as she te?ms it ! Do^s she suppose 


192 


THE DINNER. 


it is what one does which makes a lad} ? Oh, Phi., why 
is there such a difference between people of the same 
blood ? There’s your mother, as cultivated and refined as 
if she had been born a princess, and there’s Anna and 
grandma, and Uncle Tom. Is it American democracy? 
If so, I am afraid I don’t like it and, leaning back in 
'rhe carriage, Queenie looked very sober, while Phil said 
good-humoredly : 

“In rebellion against the Fergusons again, I see. It 
will never do to go against your family ; blood is blood, 
and there’s no getting rid of it or of usT 

“ I have no wish to be rid of you, but I may as well 
confess it, I do wish mother had been somebody besides 
a Ferguson,’’ Reinette replied ; then added, laughingly: 
“Don’t think me a monster — I can’t help the feeling; it 
was born in me, and father fostered it ; but I am trying 
to overcome it, you see, for haven’t I invited them all to 
dinner ? You must come early, Phil — very early, so as to 
help me through.’’ 

Phil promised, and as they had reached Hetherton 
Place by this time, and it was beginning to grow dark, 
he bade her good -night, and walked rapidly back to tire 
Knoll. 


CHAPTER XXL 

THE DINNER. 

RUE to her promise, Reinette drove round to 
see Margery the next morning, and cart!<;d a 
pile of dresses which scarcely needed a 
stitch, but which she insisted should be 
changed, as she knew Margery needed wo’ k. She 
found her friend well and delighted with the cottage, 



THE DINNER. 


193 

which suited her in every particular, Mrs. La Rue, too, 
was very calm and quiet, and only spoke to Reinette 
when spoken to, until the latter, in speaking of Hether- 
ton Place and how lonely she was there at times, 
especially in the evening, when Phil was not with her, 
said : 

“ I am going to hunt up my old nurse, who was with 
mother when she died. She is alive, I am sure, and 
somewhere in England or France. I shall have her 
come to live with me.” 

Mrs. La Rue was standing with her back to Reinette, 
pidking the dead leaves from a pot of carnations, but she 
turned suddenly, and facing the girl, said quickly : 

“ Better leave the nurse v/here she is ; you will be 
happier without her.” 

“ I don’t know why you should say that,” Reinette 
retorted, in a tone which showed her irritation that Mrs. 
La Rue should presume to dictate ; “you certainly can 
know nothing of Christine Bodine.” 

“Of course not, but I know that old nurses do not 
often add to the happiness of young ladies like you, so 
leave her alone ; do not try to find her,” Mrs. La Rue 
replied, and there was a ring in her voice like a note of 
fear which Reinette v/ould have detected had she been at 
all suspicious. 

But she was only resentful and answered proudly, “ I 
shall certainly find her if I can,” then with a few direc- 
tions to Margery with regard to the dresses, she drove 
away to order some necessary articles for her dirmer, 
which she meant to make a success. As the new summer 
house on the plateau was not yet completed, the table 
was laid on the broad piazza overlooking the river and 
town beyond, and everything was in readiness by the 
time Grandma Ferguson arrived, for true to her promise, 
she came early, and in her sprigged vtuslin and lavender 
ribbons, was fanning herself in the large rocking-chair 
just as the clock was striking four. She had tried, she 
9 


194 


THE DINNER. 


said, cO bring Lyddy Ann and Anna with her, b.it Anna 
had got some highfalutin’ notions about not goin’ till the 
last minit ; and so she presumed she wouldn’t come till 
the last gun was fired, but if she’s Reinette she wouldn’t 
wait for her. 

Miss Anna was really putting on a great many airs 
and talking etiquette to her mother and grandmother 
until both were nearly crazy. She had been to the 
Knoll that morning to call upon her cousins, both of 
whom were struck with the accession of dignit)’ and 
stiffness in her manner, but never dreamed that the 
splitting up of the sign had anything to do with it ; they 
attributed it rather to the new and pretty muslin the 
young lady wore and the presence of Major Rossiter, 
who was presented to her, and who, with a freak of fancy 
most accountable, surrendered to her at once. The 
major was fifty, and bald and gray, and near-sighted and 
peculiar, and though he admired pretty women, he had 
never been known to pay one more attention than was 
required of him as a gentleman. He had thought his 
cousins, Ethel and Grace, very attractive and lady-like 
and sweet, while Reinette had taken his breath away with 
her flash and sparkle, but neither of the three had ever 
moved him as he was moved by Anna’s stately manner 
when she gave him the tip of her fingers and bowed so 
ceremoniously to him. The major liked a woman to be 
quiet and dignified, and Anna’s stiffness suited him, and 
he walked home with her and sat for half an hour in the 
parlor and talked with her of Europe, which she hoped 
one day to see, and sympathized with her when she de- 
plored most eloquently the fate which tied her down to 
a little country place like Merrivale, when she was by 
nature fitted to enjoy so much. But poverty was a hard 
master and ruled its subjects with an iron rod, she said, 
and there were tears in the blue eyes which looked up at 
the major, who felt a great pity for and interest in this 
girl so gifted, so dignified, and so pretty, for he thought 


THE DINNER, 


*95 


her all these, aid said to her at parting that he hoped to 
see her later in the day at Hetherton Place, where he 
was going with the Rossiters. 

After the major left her Anna sat down to think, and 
the result of the thinking was that though Major Rossiter 
was old, and tiresome, and fidgety, and not at all like 
Mr. Beresford or Phil, he was rich and evidently pleased 
with her, and she resolved that nothing should be lacking 
on her part to increase his interest in her, and make him 
believe that whatever her surroundings were, she was 
superior to them and worthy to stand in the high places 
of the land. She was ashamed of her father and mother, 
especially the former, and when at noon he asked what 
time the dinner was to come off, she felt a fear lest he 
might be intending to go as he was. Reinette’s eyes and 
manner when she gave the invitation had done their 
work with him. 

“ I really b’lieve the girl wmnts me to come, odd and 
homespun as I am,” he thought, and he made up his 
mind to do so, and Anna felt a cold sweat oozing out 
from her finger tips, as she wondered what Major Lord 
Rossiter would think of him. 

“ Are you sure you will enjoy it?” she said. “You 
know how long it is since you have been anywhere, and 
Reinette is very particular how her guests comport them- 
selves — foolishly so, perhaps. You cannot eat in your 
shirt sleeves there, no matter how warm you may be.” 

“Who in thunder said I would eat in my shirt 
sleeves,” Mr. Ferguson said, doggedly, feeling intuitively 
that his daughter did not wish him to go, and feeling 
also determined that he would. 

And so it happened that simultaneously with the major, 
in his elegant dinner costume, with his white neck-tie and 
button-hole bouquet, came honest Tom Ferguson, in the 
suit he had worn to church for at least six years or more, 
and which was anything but stylish and fashionable. But 
Tom was not a fashionable man, and made no oretense 


THE DINNER. 


of being other than he was, but he did not eat in hir> shiii 
sleeves or commit any marked blunders at the dinner 
table, where six or seven courses were served, with Pierre 
as chief waiter and engineer. Reinette was an admirable 
hostess, and so managed to make her incongruous guests 
feel at home, that the dinner was a great success, and the 
fastidious major, who was seated far away from both 
grandma and Tom, did not think the less of Anna be- 
cause of any short comings in her father or mother, though 
he knew they were not like the people of his world. But 
the Rossiters were, and they were Anna’s relations, and 
she was refined and cultivated, if her parents were not, 
he thought, for the glamour of love at first sight was over 
and round him, and Anna was very pretty in her white 
muslin dress, and very quiet and lady-like, he thought, 
and when, after the dinner was over, he walked with her 
upon one of the finished terraces and saw how well she 
carried herself and how small and delicately-shaped were 
her hands and feet — for he was one to notice all these 
tilings — he began vaguely to wonder how old she was 
and what his bachelor friends at the club would say if he 
should present her to them as his wife. The major was 
unquestionably attacked with a disease, the slightest 
symptoms of which he had never before had in his life, 
and when at last it was time for the guests to leave, and 
the Hetherton carriage came round to take Grandma 
Ferguson and Mrs. Lydia and Anna home, he suggested 
to the latter that she walk with him, as there was a moon 
and the night was fine. 

If there was anything Anna detested it was walking 
over a dusty dirt road in slip-.crs, and she wore that 
day a dainty pair with heels so high that her ankles were 
in danger of turning over with every step. But slippers 
and dusty highways weighed as nothing against a walk 
with Major Rossiter down the winding hill, between 
hedges of sweet-brie^ and alder, and across the long 
causeway where the oeechesand maples nearly met over- 


MARGERY AND THE PEOPLE. 


»97 


head, and tne river wound like a silver thread :hrougli 
the green meadows to the westward. Such a walk would 
be very romantic, and Anna meant to take it if she 
spoiled a dozen pairs of slippers. So she acceded to the 
major’s proposition, and the two started together for 
home, while Phil looked curiously after them and said 
in an aside to Queenie : “ The old chap is hard hit, and 

if I’m not mistaken, Anna will be my Lady Rossiter, anu 
then won’t we second-class mortals catch it." 


CHAPTER XXII. 

MARGERY AND THE PEOPLE. 

ARGERY was a success in Merrivale as a dress- 
maker, at least. Mrs. Lydia had done very 
well, it is true. Her work was always neatly 
i finished and her prices satisfactory, but she 
never went farther from home than Springfield or Wor- 
cester, so that there was a sameness and stiffness in her 
styles wholly unlike the beautiful garments which came 
from Margery’s skillful hands, no two of which were 
alike, and each one of which seemed prettier and newer 
\ han its predecessor, so that in less than two weeks her 
rooms were full of work, and her three girls busy from 
morning till night, and she had even proposed to Miss 
Anna to help her a few hours each day during the busy 
season. But Anna spurned the proposition with con- 
tempt, saying her days of working for people and being 
snubbed by them on account of it were over. 

When Queenie heard of this she laughed merrily, and 
went herself into Margery’s workshop and trimmed 
Hattie Granger’s wedding-dress with he** own hamis 



198 MARGEJ^Y AND THE PEOPLE, 


and promised to make every stitch of Anna’s should she 
succeed in capturing the major, as she seemed likely to 
do ; but Anna answered that her wedding-dress, if she 
ever had one, would not be made in the country, and so 
that point was settled. 

From the first Margery’s great beauty attracted un- 
usual attention but upon no one did it produce so great an 
effect as upon Grandma Ferguson, who first saw the girl 
the Sunday after her arrival in Merrivale. Reinette had 
told the sexton to give Miss and Mrs. La Rue a seat with 
her in the Hetherton pew, describing the two ladies to 
him so there could be no mistaking them. But Margery 
came alone, and whether it was that the old sexton’s 
mind was intent upon a short woman in black, or whether 
something about Margery herself carried him back to the 
Sundays of long ago, when a girlish figure used to glide 
up the aisle to John Ferguson’s pew, he made a mistake 
and Grandma Ferguson had just settled herself on her 
cushion and adjusted her wide skirts about her, when a 
rustling sound caught her ear, and turning her head she 
saw a face which made her start suddenly with a great 
throb of something like fear as a tall young girl, simply 
but elegantly attired in black silk and white chip bonnet, 
with a wreath of lilacs around it, took a seat beside her. 
Mrs. Rossiter had seen something in the French girl’s 
face which puzzled and bewildered her. And grandma 
saw it, too, and defined it at once, and drew a long breath 
as she gazed at the face so like the face of her Margaret 
dead over the sea. Who was she, grandma asked herself 
and forgot to say her prayers or listen to the sermon, 
as she wondered and watched. Others had seen only a 
likeness to Margaret Ferguson, tut the mother who could 
never forget saw more than that ; she saw her dead child 
repeated in this beautiful young girl, who grew restless 
and nervous under the scrutiny of the eyes she knew 
were fastened so constantly upon her, and was glad whep 
the sermon v as over and she could thus escape them. 


MARGERY AND THE PEOPLE, 


199 


Reinette, who occupied the Hetherton pew, had 
turned once, and seeing where Margery was, had nodded 
to her, and the moment church was over she came down 
the aisle, tossing her head airily, and with the strange 
witchery and magnetism c' her smile and wonderful 
eyes, throwing into the shade the fair blonde whose 
beauty had been noted by the people as something 
remarkable. And how unlike they were to each other, 
golden-haired, blue-eyed, rose-tinted Margery, so tall, 
and quiet, and self-possessed, and dark-haired, dark -eyed, 
dark -faced Reinette, petite and playful, and restless as a 
bird, with a flash in her brilliant eyes, before which even 
Margery’s charms were, for the time, forgotten. 

“ Who is she. Rennet?’’ grandma whispered, catching 
her granddaughter’s arm as she came near, and pointing 
toward Margery. “ Who is she, with a face so like your 
mother’s that for a minute I thought it was my Margaret 
come back again.” 

‘ Like my mother? Oh, I am so glad, for now I 
shall love her more than ever,” Reinette replied ; then, 
touching Margery, she presented her to her grandmother, 
saying, as she did so : “ She thinks you look like my 
mother, and perhaps you do, for I am sure you are more 
like a Ferguson than I am.” 

The next day grandma went to the cottage, osten- 
sibly to make some inquiries with regard to a dress, but 
really to see again the girl who was so like her daughter, 
and who was very kind and gentle with her, and said to 
her so sweetly : 

“ I am glad if I am like Mrs. Hetherton, for she was 
Reinette’s mother, and I am sure you will like me for it. 
I want people to like me.” 

And in this wish Margery was gratified, for from th 
first she became very popular and took her place among 
the best young ladies in town. For this she was in part 
indebted to Reinette, who insisted that she should be 
noticed, and who, if she saw any signs of rebellion or 


200 


MARGERY AND THE FED RLE. 


indifference on the part of the people, opened her bat- 
teries upon the delinquents, and brought them to terms 
at once. 

When the grounds were completed at Hetherion 
Place, she gave a garden party to which all the desirabie 
people in Merrivale were bidden. It was in honor of 
Margery, she said, and she treated the young girl as a 
subject wo’ Jd treat a queen, and made so much of her, 
and talked of her so much, that Mr. Beresford said to her 
as they were standing a little apart from the others, and 
she was asking if he ever saw any one as beautiful as 
Margery : 

“ Yes, she is very pretty and graceful and all that, but 
she cannot have had the training which you did. Her 
early associates must have been very different from yours, 
and I am somewhat surprised at your violent fancy for 
her.” 

Then Reinette turned upon him hotly, and he never 
forgot the look of scorn in her blazing eyes, as she said : 

I know perfectly vrell what you mean, Mr. Beresford, 
and I despise you for it. Because Margery — earns 

her own living — is a dressmaker — you, and people like 
you, look down upon her from your lofty platform of 
position and social standing, and I hate you for it ; yes, 
I do, for how are you better than she. I’d like to know. 
Aren’t you just as anxious for a case to work up as she 
for a dress to make, and what’s the difference, except 
that you are a man and she a woman, and so the more to 
be commended, because she is willing to take care of 
herself instead of folding her hands in idleness. I tell 
you, Mr. Beresford, you must do better, or I’ll never speax 
to you again. There’s Margery now, over there by the 
summer-house, talking with Major Rossiter, and look- 
ing awfully bored. Go and get her away, and dance 
with her. See, they are just forming a quadrille there 
in the summer-house and she pointed to the large, 
fanciful structure on the plateau, which, with its many- 


MAJRGERY AND THE PEOPLE. 


201 


colored lights, was much like the gay restaurants on the 
Champs d’Elysees in Pans. Indeed the whole affair 
bore a strong resemblance to the outdoor fetes in France, 
and the grounds seemed like fairy-land, with the flowers, 
and flags, and arches, and colored lights, and groups of 
gayly-dressed people wandering up and down the broad 
walks and on the grassy terraces, or dancing in the 
summer-house, near which the band was stationed. 

Mr. Beresford never danced; he was too dignified 
for that, but he carried Margery away from the major, 
and w'alked with her through the grounds, and wondered 
at her refinement and lady-like manners, which seemed 
so natural to her. Mr. Beresford was an aristocrat of the 
deepest dye, and believed implicitly in family and blood, 
and as Margery had neither, he was puzzled, and 
bewildered, and greatly interested in her, and thought 
hers the most beautiful face he had ever seen, excepting 
Reinette’s, which stood out distinct among all the faces 
in the world. 

Reinette was at her best that night, and like some 
bright bird flitted here and there among her guests, 
saying the right word to the right person, and doing 
the right thing in the right place, and so managing, 
that when at a late hour the festivity was at an end, and 
her guests came to say good-by, it was no fashionable 
lie, but the truth they spoke when they assured her that 
evening had been the most enjoyable of their lives, and 
one never to be forgotten. 

»• 


loa 


PERFECTING THEMSEL VES 


CHAPTER XXllI. 


PERFECTING THEMSELVES IN FRENCH. 



HAT was what Mr. Beresford and Phil were 
said to be doing during the weeks when they 
went every day to Hetherton Place, Phil, 
who had nothing to do, riding over early 
svery morning, and Mr. Beresford, who had a great deal 
50 do, going in the evening, or as early in the afternoon 
IS he could get away from his office. It was not unusual 
for the two to meet on the causeway, Phil coming from 
end Mr. Beresford going to the little lady, who bewitched 
and intoxicated them both, though in a very different 
way. With Phil, her cousin, she laughed, and played, 
and flirted, and quarreled — hot, bitter quarrels some- 
times — in which she always had the better of Phil, inas- 
much as her command of language was greater, and her 
rapid gestures added point to her sarcasm. But if her 
anger was the hotter and fiercer, she was always the 
first to make overtures for a reconciliation ; the first tc 
confess herself in error, and she did it so prettily and 
sweetly, and purred around Phil so like a loving kitten, 
that he thought the making up worth all the quarrel- 
ing, and rather provoked the latter than tried to avoid 
It. 


Sometimes, when she was more than usually unreason- 
able and aggravating, Phil would absent himself from 
Hetherton Place for two or three days, knowing well 
that in the end Pierre would come to him with a note 
from Qaecnie begging him to return, and chiding him 
for his foolishness in laying to heart anything she had 
said. 

“ You know I do not mean a word of it, and it’s just 


IN FRENCH. 


*03 


my awful temper which gets the mastery, and I think 
you hateful to bother me by staying away when you 
know how poky it is here without you,” she would write, 
and within an hour Phil would be at her side again, bask* 
ing in the sunlight of her charms, and growing every day 
more and more infatuated with the girl, whose eyes were 
just as bright, and whose smile was just as sweet and al- 
luring, when, later on, Mr. Beresford came, more in 
love, if possible, than Phil, but with a different way of 
showing it. 

Queenie was morally certain that he was either in 
love with her or would be soon ; and she was always a 
.ittle shy of him, and never allowed the conversation to 
Approach anything like love-making ; and if he praised 
a particular dress and said it was becoming, as he some- 
times did, she never wore it again lor him, but when she 
knew he w^as coming, donned some old-fashioned gown 
in which she fancied herself hideous. 

“ If Mr. Beresford would be foolish, it should not be 
from any fault of hers,” she thought, never dreaming 
that if she arrayed herself in a bag he would still have 
thought lier charming, provided her eyes and mouth were 
visible. 

Ostensibly Mr. Beresford’s relations with her were of 
a purely business nature ; for in managing so large an 
estate there was much to be talked about, and Queenie 
would know everything, especially with regard to foreign 
matters. 

There were many letters from France, and these she 
read to Mr. Beresford, who, with Phil’s help, might have 
made them out : but he brought them religiously to 
Queenie, who had insisted upon it with a persistence 
which surprised him, and insisted, too, upon receiving 
them from him with the seals unbroken and reading them 
first herself. She had not forgotten her father’s dying 
injunction: “If letters come to me from France burn 
them unread,’ 


«04 


PERFECTING THEMSELVES 


No letters had come to him from aay source, proving 
that he had no friends who cared to know of his welfare : 
but with a woman’s subtle intuition, heightened by actual 
knowledge, Queenie knew there was something some- 
where which she was to ward off if possible, and, as it 
might come in some business letter, she made it a condi- 
tion that all documents should be brought to her first. 
As yet, however, everything had been open and clear, and 
Queenie was beginning to think her fears groundless, 
when Mr. Beresford brought her one .day a letter from 
Messrs. Polignie & Co., who, among other things, wrote 
that the money invested with them for the benefit of a 
certain Christine Bodine had been paid by them to her 
agent, who had been empowered by her to receive the 
same. The name of the agent was given, and enclosed 
was his receipt, and then M. Polignie wrote : 

“ For reasons which may or may not be just, I would 
not advise the young lady to continue her search for this 
woman Bodine, whom we shall make no effort to find 
nor shall we answer Miss Hetherton’s letter with regard 
to her, unless greatly pressed to do so.” 

Reinette was white to her lips as she read this, with 
Mr. Beresford sitting by and watching her, but she 
uttered no sound She merely took a pencil from the 
table, and on a slip of paper wrote the name and address 
of Christine’s agent, which she put into her pocket ; 
then, still keeping the letter from Mr. Beresford, she 
scratched out every word concerning Christine so ef- 
fectually that it would be impossible for any one to 
decipher it, much less Mr. Beresford, whose knowledge 
of the language was so imperfect. 

“ Miss Hetherton ! what are you doing? You may 
be erasing something very important for me to know. 
Stop, instantly ! You have no business thus to mutilate 
a letter which does not belong to you,” he cried, grow- 
ing more and more in earnest, and even irritable, as she 


IN FRENCH, 


205 

paid no heed to him, but went cooily on with her 
erasures. 

“It is my business,” she answered^ at last, and her 
voice was low and strange. “It is my businesss, and no 
one’s else. It has nothing to do with you. It only con- 
cerned me. Y ou can have your letter now ; they have 
paid my nurse’s agent and sent you his receipt.” 

She handed him the letter, which, as it was written in 
an unusually hurried manner, he could not read, and so 
she read it to him, unconsciously laying a good deal of 
stress upon the fact that Christine had been paid, and 
that there was an end of that. 

“You see they do not tell you where she is,” she said, 
trying to speak naturally, though there was a kind of 
defiant tone in her voice. “ And you need not make 
any further inquiries. I might not like Iier, and if I 
brought her here I should feel obliged to keep her.” 

She looked straight at Mr. Beresford, who nodded 
assent to what she said, but was not wholly deceived. 
That the erasure had something to do with Christine he 
was certain, and, with his curiosity roused by Reinette’s 
excited manner, he resolved to ascertain for himself who 
and what the woman was. He, too, had the address of 
her authorized agent, and the mail for New York which 
left Merrivale next day carried two letters, one in 
English and one in French, directed to M. Jean Albrech, 
Mentone, France, and in the one written in French was 
a note for Christine Bodine^ in whom Reinette had implRit 
faith as a true, good woman, notwithstanding what the 
Messrs. Polignie had insinuated against her. They were 
vile, suspicious people, Reinette said to herself, who, 
because her father paid money to a poor woman, thought 
she must be bad. They did not know, as she did, how 
kind and faithful Christine had been to her mother, who 
asked that she should be rewarded and cared for, and 
this was the way her father had done it. Thus Queenie 
reasoned and tried to reassure herself, but for diys there 


2o6 


«/ YOU, QUEEN I E,^ 


was a shadow on her bright face and a dull pain in hei 
heart as she wondered what the mystery could be con- 
cerning the woman Bodine. 

But Queenie could not be unhappy long, and m 
visiting Margery as she did every day, and calling upon 
her cousins at the Knoll, and watching what had become 
a decided flirtation or rather genuine love affair between 
Major Rossiter and Anna, she recovered her spirits, and 
resuming her old, fascinating manner with Mr. Beresford 
and Phil, drove them both to the point of seeking to 
know their fate, whether for good or evil. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

LOVE YOU, QUEENIE.” 

BERESFORD was the first to say it. As he 
did not often see Phil and Queenie together, 
except in company with Grace and Ethel, or 
Anna, he had no reason to know how much 
they were to each other, or he might not have been as 
confident of success as he was when at last he made up 
his mind to speak and know the worst or best there was 
to know. It had been his boast that no woman living 
could affect his happiness one way or the other. As a 
general thing he did not believe in them ; that is, did not 
believe them real, or worth the love so many strong, sen- 
sible men wasted upon them. 

But the little, bright-eyed French girl had torn down 
all his fortifications, and he did believe in her, and 
wanted her for his own, as he had never wanted anything 
before in his life. She was so fresh, so original, so 
piquant, so different from any one he had ever seen. 
Etliel and Grace Rossiter were sweet and lady-like, bm 



«/ ZOFJS YOU, QUEENIE^^ 


207 


they never affected him, while Margery La Rue was, he 
acknowledged, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. 

Everybody conceded that, and Mr. Beresfcrd was not 
an exception to the rule. 

Since the night when Reinette berated him so soundly 
for what she thought his lack of appreciation for Miss 
La Rue, he had called upon her a few times, and felt a 
growing interest in her, as he saw how pure and sweet 
she was, with an inborn delicacy and refinement of man- 
ner seldom found in persons of her class, for she never 
tried to hide the fact that her mother was a hair-dresser 
in Paris, and her father a nothing. 

This, of itself, would have been a terrible obstacle in 
Mr. Beresford's way had he been greatly interested in 
Margery. Her family was against her, but with Queenie 
was different, and he loved her as men of his mature 
age usually love when the grand passion seizes them for 
the first time, and he told her so one night when they sat 
together upon the ledge of rocks which overlooked the 
town and the river wandering through it. 

Reinette had quarreled with Phil that day — hotly and 
fiercely quarreled, and had told him to go away and 
never come near her again, for she did not like him, and 
thought big cousins bores any way. And Phil had an- 
swered back, and said he was quite ready to go, and 
glad to be rid of such a termagant, and that sfie need 
not expect him to put himself in the way of her temper 
again, even though she wrote him a hundred notes of 
apology. 

Then Phil went away and slammed the door after 
him, and was soon riding rapidly down the hill, while 
Queenie from her window watched him, wondering if 
she had offended him past all reconciliation, and what 
her life would be without patient, good-for-noth'ng Phil 
to come and go at her nod. 

And then she wondered if it was true, as he nad said, 
that she was vixenish and catty (those were the terms he 


“/ LOVE YOU, QUEENIB.” 


tviZ 

had used), and if others thought so too — Mr. Beresfvrrtlv 
for instance, who was so different from Phil, and of 
whom she was a little afraid. She had never treated him 
with such bursts of temper as she had Phil, but she had 
been hot and imperious in her manner towaid him when 
he did not please her, and with Phil’s words, “You are a 
vixen and a "ermagant,” ringing in her ears, she resolved 
to be very gracious to Mr. Beresford when he came that 
evening, as he was sure to do. Every claw should be 
sheathed, and if she were a cat, she would be a very 
gentle, purring one, and she wore the dress she knew 
Mr. Beresford liked, and put knots of scarlet ribbon 
here and there, and was altogether lovely when he came, 
earlier than usual, and this time wdthout any papers or 
foreign letters for her to read. There was nothing to do 
but talk, and Queenie was very soft and gentle, and 
acquiesced readily in his proposition ’that they walk out 
to the ledge of rocks, which was her favorite seat. 

The early October night was warm and still, and the 
young moon Imng in the western sky giving a pale 
silvery light to everything, and falling upon the dark 
hair and bright, glowing face of the young girl who was 
full of life and animation, and talked, and laughed, and 
coquetted with lier companion until he could restrain 
himself no longer, and catching her suddenly in his 
arms, he said to her : 

“Queenie, I love you, and want you for my wife ; I 
have loved you, I bel ‘eve, since the moment I first saAV 
you at the station, ai.d you clung to me as your fal her's 
friend, whom you were to trust Avith everything. So 
»Tust yourself to me ; let me have a right to call you 
mine. I have lived many years with no thought or care 
for womankinvi, and such men love all the more when at 
last their heart is touched. Surely, surely, Queenie, you 
will not tell me no.” 

This last was said in a tone which had in it sometliing 
of fear, for Queenie had wrenched herself from him, and 


«/ LOVE YOU, QUEEN I Er 


209 


standing a little apart was looking fixedly at him with 
wide-open, wondering eyes as if asking whai he msant. 

“ Say, Queenie,” he continued, “ you will let me love 
you. You will be my wife.” 

“No, never, never! Always your friend but never 
your wife,” she said, and her voice rang out clear and full 
as if the answer were decisive. “ I am sorry,” she began 
very gently as she saw how he staggered back as if 
smitten with a sudden blow, “ 1 am sorry that you care 
for me this way ; sorry if I have encouraged you. I 
thought you knew me better than that. I have laughed, 
and talked, and flirted with you, just as I have with Phil, 
but with no intention to make you love me. Forgive me, 
Mr. Beresford, if I have misled you. I cannot be your 
wife. I have no love for you.” 

He knew she was in earnest, quite as much by the ex- 
pression of her face as by her words, and for a moment 
he felt bewildered and stunned with his sense of loss and 
pain which was all the greater because he had expected 
a different answer from her. Not expected her to say 
yes at once, for that was not her nature. She would 
tease him, and maybe laugh at him, and call him old, as 
she had sometimes done, when he was conscious of 
trydng to act young. She would assume all these coquet- 
tish manners which he thought so charming, and then in 
the end she would lay her little hands in his, and answer 
in her saucy way : 

“ You can have me if you really want me, but you will 
get a bad bargain.” 

This, or something like it, was what he had fondly 
imagined, and alas, the result was so different. The little 
hands he had expected to be laid in his were locked 
firmly together, and the girl stood up erect and digrilied 
before him, with no coquetry in her manner, or ever, shy- 
ness. as she gave him her answer which hurt him so cruel- 
ly. He was not one to beg and plead as a younger, more 
impetuous man might have done, and so the blow hurt 


210 


‘V ZOF£ YOU, QUEEN 1E: 


him worse and made him shiver with a cold, faint feeling 
as he looked at her for a moment, while she looked back 
as curiously at him, seeing something in his face which 
awoke within her a feeling of great pity for him. 

“Oh, Mr. Beresford,” she said, coming a little nearer 
to him. “ Don’t look at me like that. Don’t care for me 
so much — I am not worth it. I should not make you 
happy, I am so high-tempered, and passionate, and bad, 
and say things you never would forget. Nobody could 
forget them but Phil, and he has sworn never to do it 
again. Only to-day he called me a vixen and a terma- 
gant, and left me in hot anger, and if I can make him 
feel like that, what could I not do to you, who are so dif- 
ferent — so much more matter-of-fact.” 

The mention of Phil was unfortunate, and awoke in 
Mr. Beresford a feeling of bitter jealousy which made 
him say things he would have given worlds to unsay when 
it was too late to do so. 

“Phil!” he repeated, sneeringly. “Yes, I see; I 
understand ; Phil is my rival, and I might have known 
it. Women always prefer idlers like him, who have — ” 
he stopped suddenly, checked by the expression of the 
black eyes confronting him so steadily, and growing so 
fierce and bright, as the girl said : 

“Well, go on. You did not finish. You said ‘idlers 
like him, who have — ’ Have what ? I insist upon know- 
ing what you mean. What is it Phil has which you have 
not ?” 

Her tone and manner made him angry, and he an- 
swered at last : 

“ He has plenty of time at his disposal to make love 
to you ; he has nothing else to do, and wi»men like men 
with no aim, no object in life ; nothing to do but to play 
the Sardanapalus.” 

“Mr. Beresford,” and Reinette’s eyes blazed with 
scorn, “ I did not dream you were so mean — so d ista^'dly. 
Idler as you say he is, Phil Rossiter wmuld cut ais 


LOVE YOU, QUEEN lEr 


211 


out sooner than it should say a word against you^ 
his friend, were you a thousand times his rival ; and you, 
in your fo&tish jealousy, accuse him of wearing women’s 
dresses, and spinning, and — ” 

“Queenie, I did nothing of the sort,” Mr. Beresford 
said, interrupting her, and she continued ; 

“Yes, you did. You likened him to Sardanapalus, 
which is the same thing, and I hate you fcr it !” 

“Not more than I hate myself,” Mr. Beresford said, 
for he was beginning to be very much ashamed of the 
weakness which prompted him to speak against Phil 
Rossiter, whom he liked so much. “Forgive me, 
Queenie ; it was unmanly— cowardly in me to attack my 
rival, and nothing but cruel disappointment and bitter 
pain could have induced me to do it. Phil is my friend, 
and the most unselfish, kind hearted fellow in the whole 
world. Can you forgive me for saying aught against 
him ?” 

Queenie knew he was in earnest, and, as ready to 
forgive as to take offense, she answered at once : 

“ Yes, I know you did not mean it ; you could not. 
Phil may be an idler, I rather think he is, but he is so 
noble, so good, so unselfish, and bears with me as no 
one else ever could. But, Mr. Beresford, you are 
mistaken. Phil is not your rival, and it was no thought 
of him which led me to refuse you. He is my cousin, 
and if I loved him ever so much, I could no more marry 
iiim than I could my^ brother, if I had one. I am enough 
of a Roman Catholic to think such a marriage unnatural 
and wicked. I could not do it, and I have no desire to 
— no love for him that way. Why, I would soone; 
marry you than Phil ; upon my word, I would.” 

She had forgiven him, and he knew it, and hope rose 
suddenly within him, and taking her hands in his, sttid 
holding them tightly there, he began again: 

“ Oh, Queenie, you give me new life, new hope, for if 
Phil is not my rival, you may come in time to think of 


(212 


LOVJS YOU, QUEENIEr 


me, not now, not for a year, perhaps, or more, but some 
time, when you have learned how much I love you 
Promise me that you will try. Put me on trial for a 
year, during which time I will not bother you with love- 
making. rilbeyour staid old guardian, nothing moie. 
Will you — will you think of it a year ! ” 

“Of what use would that be,” she said, “when at the 
end of the year I should think just the same ? ” 

“ But you might not,” he replied. “ At least give me 
that chance ; give me one ray of sunlight, for without it 
the world will be very dreary. I shall put myself on 
probation whether you will or not.” 

She did not answer him, but stood looking off across 
the moon-lit meadows with a troubled look in her dark 
eyes which he could not fathom. At last releasing her 
hands from his, she said, with a little shiver : 

“ It is growing cold. I must go in now, and you 
must go home, and never speak to me again as you have 
to-night.” 

“ Not until a year, and then if no other love has come 
between us, I shall tell you again that I love you,” he 
said, and she replied : 

“ A year is a long time, and so much may happen to 
us both.” 

It did seem long to her, but to him, who was so 
much older, it seemed as nothing, if at the end he could 
hope to win the girl who walked so silently by his side 
until the house was reached, where he said good-night to 
her and then rode back to town, feeling, in spite of her 
assertion to the contrary, that there was a grain of hope 
for him, if he would bide his time pitiently, and feeling, 
too, a great remorse and hatred for himself for what 
had said of Phil 


PHirS WOOING. 


213 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Phil’s wooing. 

REN Phil left Reinette so suddenly he was full 
of resentment, for she had been unusually un- 
reasonable and exasperating, and he meant 
what he said when he told her he would not 
come to her again if she wrote him a hundred notes of 
apology. She had called him a bore, and a spooney, and 
a Miss Nancy, and he did not know what else; and his 
anger continued all through the day and night when he 
lay awake thinking of her, and how she looked with the 
great tears standing in her flashing eyes as she bade him 
leave her and never come again. 

‘‘ And I won’t, by Jove ! ” he said, as he was dressing 
himself in the morning ; but when breakliast was over, and 
he had sat for an hour or more with his mother and sisters 
he began to feel terribly ennuied^ and to wonder why 
Grace and Ethel would be so dull and tame, and tak^ 
so much interest in their worsteds, as if their lives 
depended upon having the right shades of wool in their 
roses. 

They were nice girls, of course, he thought, but quite 
commonplace and old-maidish, and he was puzzled to 
know how he should dispose of his time, now that he 
could not go to Reinette. It had been his custom to ii<ie 
over to Hetherton Place quite early in the day, and stay 
until late in the afternoon, but that was over now ; he 
was never going there again, and life had rather a dreary 
lookout for Phil vrhen he at last left the house and saun 
tered slowly toward Mr. Beresford’s office. 

The lawyer was busy, but he greeted Phil even more 
cordially than usual, for there was in his heart a feeling 



214 


PHirS WOOING. 


of keen regret for having allowed himself to say aught 
against the young man whom he really liked so much, 
and whoj it seemed to him, looked rather sober and ab- 
stracted, as he seatc:^ himelf near the window and began 
idly to turn tiie leaves of a law book. The mail was just 
in, and among Mr. Beresford’s letters was one from his 
uncle, in New York, who wrote asking if his nephew, 
knew of any honest, trusty, winning young man whc 
would like to go out to India for a year or more on busi- 
ness for the firm. Tact, and patience, and suavity of 
manner were the essential qualifications, he wrote, and 
to a person possessed of these, the firm would pay a 
liberal salary. On many accounts be preferred a man 
from the country, and so had written to his nephew first. 

Mr. Beresford read the letter carefully, then glanced 
at Phil, and asked himself whether it were not a desire 
to remove a possible rival from his way, which prompted 
him to think him just the man for the place. Phil was 
trusty and winning, with any amount of tact and perse- 
verance if once roused to action. The post would suit 
him exactly ; and deciding at last that he was not wholly 
selfish in the matter, Mr. Beresford handed him the 
letter, saying : 

“Here is something which may interest you, and 
possibly you may like the situation.” 

Phil read the letter through, and his first impulse 
was that he would go. He should enjoy the voyage 
immensely, for he liked the sea, and he should enjoy the 
new life, too, only — and Phil gave a little gasping 
breath, as he thought of going away where he could not 
even see Reinette. Of course, she would never be to 
him what she had been, but it would be some pleasure 
to see her come in and go out of his father’s house, and 
to watch her in the street, and hear occasionally the 
sound of her voice, and all this would be impossible n 
India. And still the chance to do something, which he 


PHirS WOOING. 


*15 


had so longed for at times, was too good to be lightly 
thrown away, and he said to Mr. Beresford : 

“ I am half inclined to go ; at all events, I will see 
what father says, and let you know to-night.” 

Bo7i jour^ Monsieur Rossiter” fell suddenly on Phil’s 
ear, and turning, he saw Pierre, who handed him a 
dainty note, and waited while he read it. 

It was dated at “ Hetherton Place, 9 o’cltock A. m., 
and read as follows : 

Dear Phil : 

“What a simpleton you must be to think I was 
in earnest when I told you to go and never come 
back again. I know I tried you awfully and so you 
did me, and you called me such dreadful names — a vixen, 
a virago, neat, and a ter7nagant, and the dear knows what, 
and I called you a bore, and a spooney, and said I hated 
you, but, Phil, I do not, and I am just as lonesome w ilhout 
you as I can be, and last night, after I went to my room, 
I cried real hard, and said to myself, ‘ I am sorry, Phil, 
and I am, and want you to forgive me, and come right 
over here with Pierre and stay to lunch. I have ordered 
broiled chicken, with pop-overs and maple sirup. You 
know you can eat a dozen. I shall be out on the rocks, 
and see you when you come down the hill, and I will tie 
my pocket-handkerchief to my parasol and wave it for a 
signal. And now you will come, won’t you, and we will 
make it up, and never, never fight again ? 

“Your repentant 

“Queenie.” 

Phil Rossiter was not the man to withstand an appeal 
like this, and, as he read it, India and everything else 
was forgotten in his in tense desire to fly to the girl wait- 
ing for him. 

Mr. Beresford saw Pierre hand him the note, knew 
it was from Reinette, and watched him as he read it, 


2i6 


PHirS WOOING. 


while his color came and went like that of some young 
schoolgirl, and he was not greatly surprised when Phil 
said to him, as he rose to leave the office : 

“By the way. I’ve been thinking it over, and 1 don’t 
believe I care to go to India ; it is too far away. There is 
Will Granger — just the fellow they want, and he needs 
money badly ; offer it to him.” 

Phil was in the street by this time, and ten minutes 
later he was galloping toward Hetherton Place and the 
girl whose signal he saw as she waved it aloft to let him 
know she was there. And Phil rode hard and fast until 
he was at her side, sitting just where Mr. Beresford had 
stood the night before and asked her to be his wife. 

How sweet and lovely she was with that air of shy- 
ness and penitence! for she was very sorry for what had 
passed, and very glad to have Phil back ; and she gave 
him both her hands, and offered no resistance when he 
kissed them more than once, and held them while he 
talked to her, and asked if she did not think him weak 
and silly to come the minute she sent for him. 

“No, I don’t,” she said; “I knew you would come 
back, just as I knew I should send for you. It is useless 
for us to try to live apart, for what would the world be 
to either of us without the other ?” 

“ Nothing, Queenie, nothing,” Phil said, eagerly, as 
he drew her down beside him and passed his arm around 
her waist, while the light of a new hope and joy shone 
all over his face. 

Phil had long ago told himself that he loved Queenie 
with more than a cousin’s love, and had only been 
deterred from telling her so by her fitful moods, some- 
times all sunshine, sometimes all storm. But now he 
surely might speak with the full assurance of a favorable 
answ’cr, lor W’hat but this could her manner meany and 
her assertion that they could not live apart. She loved 
him, he was certain ; and with his arm around her, he 
began rapidly and impetuously to tell her how incx- 


PHirS WOOING. 


217 


pressibly dear she was to him, and to speak of the future 
when she would be his wife, as if everything were 
understooQ and settled between them. 

“ We will never quarrel then, will we, darling ?” he said. 

I should not like to see a frown on my wife’s face, and 
know it was meant for me, and I will be so good and 
loving that you will not wish to call me a bore, and send 
me away from you. And we will be married at once. 
You need a husband to care for you, and there is no 
reason why we should wait a day. I will tell mother to- 
night, and she will be so glad, and so will Ethel and 
Grace, for they all love you dearly. Why don’t you 
speak to me, Queenie?” he said, as she did not answer 
him, but sat like one dead to all sense of speech or hear- 
ing. “Why, Queenie, what is the matter? How white 
you are,” he continued, as he stooped at last to look into 
the face, which was pale as ashes, with an expression of 
pain, and even horror, upon it, which he could not 
understand. 

“Oh, Phil, you have killed me,” Queenie said, at 
last, as she released herself from him and moved to 
another rock, where she sat down and looked at him 
with eyes from which the hot tears were falling like 
rain. 

“ Killed you, Queenie ! ” Phil cried, “ How could f 
kill you by telling you that I loved you, when you must 
have known it already? Surely, surely, you have not 
been deceiving me all this time — not been leading me on 
to believ^e you loved me, just as I love you, only to mock 
me at the last ? That would be cruel, indeed.” 

And this he said because of something in her face and 
eyes which filled him with dread and fear. 

“Oh, Phil,” Queenie replied, beating the air with her 
hands, as she always did when excited, “if my con- 
science reproved me one whit, and said 1 had purposely 
misled you for my own amusement, I would drown my- 
•o 


PHIVS WOOING. 


ai8 

self in Lake Petit, but I have not, I certainly have not, 
1 thought " 

“ You thought,” Phil interrupted her, as she hesitated 
a moment — “thought what? That I was a stock — a 
stone to be unmoved by your beauty and sweetness, and 
— I will say it — your wiles and witcheries, which, if they 
meant nothing, were damnable, to say the least, and 
prove you to be the most heartless coquette that ever 
breathed. Girls do not usually write notes to men such 
as you have written me, begging them to come back, and 
then, when they go, receive them as you have received 
me, without meaning something, and if you do not mean 
marriage, may I ask what you do mean ?” 

He spoke bitterly, but not at all as he had ever spoken 
to her before when his temper and hers were at their 
height. It was the outraged, insulted man, not the pas- 
sionate boy speaking to her now, and Queenie recognized 
the difference, and shivered from head to foot, as she 
crouched down on her knees beside him and sobbed : 

“ Listen to me, Phil, before you judge so harshly, and 
believe me, as I hope for heaven, I never tried to make 
you love me this way. You are my cousin — my blood 
relation ; our mothers were sisters, and I have been 
taught that such unions were wicked, unnatural, such as 
God disapproves and curses.” 

“ You are not a Roman Catholic?” Phil said, quickly, 
and she replied : 

“No, but 1 had much of that teaching in my child- 
hood, at home in France, and this is one ot me tnings 
which took deep root in my mind. I had a governess 
who married her own cousin in spite of everything, and 
two of her children were idiots, while the third was deal 
and dumb, and when the poor mother knew that, she 
drowned herself in the Seine. Phil, I would no soonei 
marry my cousin than I would my brother, if I had one, 
and I looked upon you as a brother, and loved you as 
such, and thought you understood. Surely, you cann<- 


PHIL S WOOING. 


219 


think me so brazen-faced and bold as to treat y :u as I 
have, with a view to making you want me for your wife. 
I am sorr}’^, Pliil, so sorry, and I wish I had never crossed 
the sea, for I can never be your wife — never ! My whole 
nature revolts against it, the same as if you were my 
brother, and I know that all is over between us — that we 
can never be to each other again what we have been in 
the past. You will come here no more as you have 
^ome, and the days will be so long without you, Phil, 
and, worse than all, you will perhaps think always that 
I meant to deceive you ; but I didn’t. Oh, I didn*t, and 
you must believe it and forgive me ! Will you ?” 

She was still kneeling before him, her white face 
upturned to his, and every muscle quivering with 
anguish, as she thus importuned him. He could not 
resist her, and stooping down he kissed the quivering 
lips, but did not say he forgave her ; he asked, instead : 

“If I were not your cousin, could you marry me ?” 

“I don’t know, Phil. You see, I never thought 
about you in that way. I might, perhaps, in time, but 1 
could not now, for you are like a brother, and I must go 
back to the beginning and build up a new kind of love 
for you ; and then, Phil, I should wish you to be a little 
different from what you are now. Girls do not gener- 
ally marry men who have — ” 

Here Queenie stopped suddenly, appalled at her own 
temerity, but Phil bade her go on in a tone she must 
obey, and she went on, and said : 

“ Who have nothing to do but amuse themserves and 
others. It is all very nice in cousins and brothers to 
know how to run our sewing-machines and how our 
dresses should be trimmed and ought to hang, but we 
wish our husbands to be different from that ; wish them 
to have some aim lu life — some occupation, and you 
have none. You have never done anything toward 
earning your own living. Your father is rich, it is true, 


t20 


FHirS WOOING, 


ind able to support you, but it is more manly to support 
Due’s self — don’t you think so ?” 

She spoke very gently, but every word was a sting, 
and hurt Phil, if possible, more than her rejection of him 
had done. 

“Yes, I see,” he answered bitterly. “You think me 
a lazy dog, whom people generally despise, and so I am, 
but it is very hard to hear it from you, Queenie ; hard 
to know that I have neither your love nor your respect, 
when, fool that I was, I believed I had both.” 

“And so you have, Phil ; so you have,” Reinette said, 
eagerly, touched by the grieved, hopeless expression of 
his face, which was not at all like Phil’s face, usually so 
bright and happy. “You have both my love and re- 
spect — love as a sister — for neither Ethel nor Grace can 
iove you better than I do, in a certain way, and I respect 
and esteem you as the kindest, and best, and most un- 
selfish Phil in all the world. Don’t, Phil, oh, don’t cry !” 
she continued, in a tone of agonized entreaty, as the 
great tears, which he could not restrain, rolled down his 
white face, which was convulsed wdth pain, “ If you cry 
like that, I shall wish I w’ere dead, and I almost wish so 
now,” she added, frightened by the storm of sobs and 
tears to which he at last gave vent. 

She was still kneeling by him, and she crept down 
closer to him, and took his hands from his face, where 
he had put them, and wiped his tears aw^ay, while her 
own fell fast as she tried to comfort him and could not, 
for in only one way could sLe do that, and, with her 
view of the matter that was impossible. On that point 
she was as firm and conscientious as the most rigid Ro- 
man Catholic. To marry her cousin would be wicked, 
and so there was no hope for him in that way; but may 
be she could comfort him in another, and she said, at 
last: 

“ Phil 1 can never marry you ; that is just as impossi- 
ble as for your sister tc do it, but I can. promise never to 


PHIL'S V/OOING. 


231 


marry any one else. That would not be hard, for I do 
not be ieve I shall ever see any one for whom I care as I 
do for you; and, if you wish it, Til swear to remain 
single for your sake forever. Shall I ? ” 

“No, Queenie; no. I am not so selfish as that," he 
said. “ You ought to marry ; you need a husband Jiere 
at Hetherton Place — somebody with energy and will, 
and notan effeminate idler like me.” 

He was still smarting from the hurt of her last objec- 
tion to liim, and he went on : 

“ Whether you marry or not camnot affect me, for [ 
am going away — going to do something and be a man, 
whom you will never taunt again with his laziness and 
sloth.” 

“Oh, Phil, you misunderstood me! I did not taunt 
you. I only told you that girls would rather their 
lovers had some occupation. It was not a taunt at all. 
Forgive me, Phil. I am so sorry — oh, so sorry for this 
morning’s work, when I meant to be so happy ! ” 

Phil had risen to his feet, and she had risen, too, and 
stood looking up at him with an expression which, if it 
was not born of y love, was near of kin to it, and nearly 
maddened Phil. 

“Queenie,” he began, laying his hands upon her 
shoulders and looking fixedly into her eyes. “ do you 
mean to send me away with no word of hope ? — mean 
that you cannot be my wife.^” 

“ Yes, Phil ; I mean it. I can never be your wife^ 
because I am your cousin, and because I do not love you 
in that way,” she said. 

And Phil knew she meant it, and was conscious of 
death-like sickness stealing over and mastering him, and 
making him sit down again upon the rock, w’hile every- 
thing grew dark around him, and Oueenie’s voice seemed 

O O r 

a long way off, as she spoke to him in affrighted tones, 
and asked if he were fainting. 

He did not faint, though it was some minutes before 


232 


PHIVS WOOING. 


he was himself again and arose to say good-by. There 
was no question of lunch, no thought of broiled chicken 
and pop-overs, for both were past caring for such things 
now, and only remembered that in some sense, this good- 
by was forever. 

She thought he would, of course, come to Hethertoi 
Place again — to-morrow, perhaps — but not as he had 
come heretofore ; not as in the old happy days ; not as 
the Phil with whom she could play and coquette, but 
more as a stranger ; more like Mr. Beresford before he 
troubled her with his tale of love. 

He knew he should not come again to-morrow, nor 
for many, many to-morrows — never, perhaps ; for there 
was danger in that far-off eastern land to which he now 
meant to go. Possibly his grave was there waiting for him^ 
or he might tarry years and years, until the bright, beauti- 
ful girl standing before him had grown old and gray 
with the cares of life. And so, to him, it was good-by 
forever ; but he would not tell her so. He would wait 
and write his farewell. But he must kiss her once, for 
the sake of all she had been to him, and that he had 
hoped she would be. He was a tall young man of six 
feet and she a wee little girl, whom he could take in his 
arms as he would a child ; and he took her in his arms, 
and kissed her forehead and lips, and said to her : 

“Remember, Queenie, whatever comes, my love for 
you will remain unchanged ; for it was not the love of a 
day or a year, but love till death, and after, too, if such a 
thing can be. Good-by ! I’m going now.” 

And he went swiftly from her, while she watched him 
with a throbbing heart ; and neither of them guessed 
just where or how they would meet again. 


PHIL GOES A WA K. 


aaj 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

PHIL GOES AWAY. 

BERESFORD was alone in his office when 
Phil came in after his return from Hetherton 
Place, and asked, abruptly : 

Have you seen Will Granger about going 

to India ? ” 

‘‘Not yet; no, I thought I would wait till to-night," 
Mr. Beresford replied, and Phil continued : 

“Don’t see him, then ; I will take the place. Write 
so to your uncle at once, or perhaps I had better write 
myself." 

Something in the tone of his voice made Mr. 
Beresford turn quickly and look at him. 

“ Why, Phil," he said, “what ails you? What has 
happened to make you look so white and strange ? " 

“Nothing," Phil answered — “that is, nothing of any 
consequence to any one but myself." Then, moved by a 
sudden impulse to tell somebody, Phil burst out : 
“ Beresford, I can trust you, I know, for you have always 
been my friend." 

“Yes," faltered Mr. Beresford, thinking remorsefully 
of what he said to Reinette, and wondering if Phil 
would think that friendly, if he knew. 

“ I must tell somebody — talk to somebody, or go 
crazy," Phil continued. “ The fact is, I have made a foci 
of myself and been rejected^ as I deserv^ed." 

“You rejected! By whom?" Mr. Beresford asked, 
although he felt that he knew perfectly well what the 
answer would be. 

“By Reinette, of course. What other woman is 
there on the face of the earth whose no is worth caring 



224 


PHIL GOES A WA Y, 


for? I asked her to be my and she refused, and 
made me know she meant it ; and now I am going to 
India, for I cannot stay here.” 

“ What reason did she give for her refusal ? ” Mr, 
Beresford asked, feeling like a guilty hypocrite, and Phil 
replied : 

“ She had three reasons, each of them good and suffi- 
cient in her own mind. First, she did not love me in 
that way^ as she expressed it ; second, I am her cousin, 
and, with her Roman Catholic notions, it is an unpardon- 
able sin to marry one’s cousin ; and third, she could not 
marry a man with no aim, no occupation, no business 
except to loop up dresses and run a sewing-machine. 
That’s what she said, or something like it, and that hurt 
me worst of all, for it made me feel so small, so contemp- 
tible : and, after she said it, I knew how impossible it 
was for her even to respect such a dawdling, effeminate 
Sardanapalus as I must appear to her.” 

At the mention of Sardanapalus Mr. Beresford started, 
for that was the name he had used when speaking of Phil 
to Reinette. Had she told him ? It was not likely, else 
he had never come there with his confidence, which 
seemed so like a stab to the conscience-stricken n an, who 
at last could bear it no longer, and as Phil went on with 
his story, showing in all he said how implicitly he trusted 
him, he burst out : 

“ Stop, Phil, stop a minute, while I make a confession 
to you, and then you will not think me so much your 
friend, though Heaven knows I am, and that there is no 
man living I like as well. But, Phil, I went back on you 
once, and in a moment of weakness said things for which 
I blush. I, too, have offered myself to Reinette Hether- 
ton.” 

You ! When?” Phil exclaimed, and Mr. Beresfoid 
replied : 

“Only last night, and when she refused me, and said 
cIm did not love me, I accused you of being my rival, 


PHIL GOES A WA Y, 


225 


and in my mad jealousy said things of you which only a 
coward could have said of his friend. I sneered at your 
idle, aimless life, and said that women generally pre- 
ferred a Sardanapalus to energetic, strong men, or 
something like that.” 

You said this of me to Reinette, and I thought you 
my friend ! I would never have served you so,” Phil 
said, and in his eyes there was an expression which hurt 
Mr. Beresford cruelly, and made him think of the 
wounded Ca3sar when he cried out, Et tu^ Brute T 

“Yes, I said it, Phil, but I took it all back, and made 
what amends I could. Queenie will tell you so if you 
ask her. She flew in my face like a yellow-jacket, and 
defended you bravely. Forgive me, Phil ; I am greatly 
ashamed of myself.” 

He offered his hand to the young man, in whose eyes 
tears were shining, but who did not refuse to take it, 
though he was still smarting under this new pain. 

“ I can forgive you,” he said, with a faint smile, 
“because Queenie defended me, but it is very hard to 
bear. You say she refused you and gave you no hope ? ” 
Mr. Beresford thought of the year’s; probation he had 
insisted upon, and spoke of it to Phil, but added : 

“She told me, however, that it was useless, for at the 
end of the time her answer would be the same, so you 
see there is no hope for me either ; ” and this he said 
because he saw how utterly crushed and heart-broken 
Phil was, and he would not add to his pain by confess- 
ing that away down in his heart there was a shadowy 
hope that Queenie might change her mind, especially 
with Phil away, for he was going. He had made up his 
mind to that, and before returning home he wrote 
himself to the firm in New York, accepting the situation, 
and saying he would be in the city the next evening, as 
he wished for a few days before sailing in which to post 
h’mself with reference to the business. 

But why go to-morrow ? There is no such haste 


10' 


226 


PHIL GOES A WA K. 


necessary,” Mr, Beresford said, when he heard the con* 
tents of the letter, and Phil replied : 

“ I must go before I see her again ; the sight of her 
might unman me and make me give it up.” 

So the letter was sent, and when Phil went home to 
dinner at night he startled his family by telling them 
that he was going to India for a year, and possibly 
longer. 

“ To India !” both mother and sisters exclaimed, and 
then Phil explained it to them. 

The former opposed the plan with all her strength, 
for life without Phil would be nothing to the mother 
who loved him so much. Mr. Rossiter, on the contrary, 
approved it. It was no way for a young man to hang 
on to his mother’s apron strings all his days, he said; Phil 
ought to do something for himself. This was only a rep- 
etition of the old story of idleness and ease, and confirmed 
Phil in his purpose. He would make something of him- 
self — would show that he was capable of higher occupa 
tion than devising trimming for dresses and running a 
sewing-machine. He was very sore on the subject of 
the sewing-machine, and very reticent all through the 
dinner, and when it was over excused himself to his 
sisters, saying he had letters to write and some few 
matters which must be attended to. It was very sudden 
to them all — his going away — but, as he said, he was his 
own master and must act for himself, and when his 
mother tried to persuade him to give it up, he answered : 

“No, I have staid with you too long. You are the 
best and dearest mother in the world, but you have done 
wrong not to send me away before this, and make me 
stay away, too. I should have been more of a man 
among men. I see il now, and must take the first chance 
offered me. A year is not very long, and I shall write 
to you every week.” 

So Mrs. Rossiter gave it up, and busied herself with 
various preparations for his comfort, and said she should 


BOW QU RENTE BOEE THE NEWS. 22j 


go tD New York to see him off, and tried to seem cheer- 
ful and happy, and tried, with his sisters, to fathom the 
cloud which overshadowed his face, and made him so 
unlike himself. What had happened to him, and was 
Reinette in any way connected with it ? They thought 
so, and when in the morning he said he was going to bid 
his grandmother and Anna good-by, and they asked if 
he were not going to see Reinette, too, and he answered: 
“ I saw her yesterday, but give her this letter when I 
am gone," they were sure of it, and for the first time since 
they had known her, they felt a little vexed with the girl, 
who even then was watching from her window for the rider 
coming over the river, across the causeway, and up the 
long hill as he would not come again, for when, later in 
the day, the express train for New York stopped at West 
Merrivale, it carried him along toward the new life 
which was to have an aim and occupation. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

HOW QUEENIE BORE THE NEWS. 

HE saw the long train as it came across the 
plains from East Merrivale — saw it shoot 
under the bridge, past the station, and glide 
swiftly on by the river-side until it was lost to 
view in the deep cut by the old gold-mine, and remem- 
bered that afterward she heard the whistle as the train 
stopped at West Merrivale a few minutes and then went 
speed' ng on to the West But she never dreamed that it 
carried with it a young man whose face was pale \s 
ashes as he sat with folded arms, and hat pulled ovc' 



22% HOW QUEEN IE BORE THE NEWS. 


his eyes, seeing nothing of what was passing around 
him, and thinking only of her, listening even then for 
the sound of his horse’s feet coming up the hill. For 
Queenie felt sure he would come back to her, and that 
in some way they would make it up, and resume their 
old, delightful relations with each other. And she 
watched for him all day long, and was beginning to get 
restless and impatient, when, about sun-set, the Rossiter 
carriage came slowly up the hill and into the yard. 

In a trice Queenie was at the door, feeling certain 
that the recreant Phil had driven over with his sisters, 
as he sometimes did. But only Ethel and Grace were 
there, and it struck Queenie that there was something a 
little strange in their manner, while Grace had evidently 
been crying. 

“ I am so glad you have come !” she said, as she led 
the way into the house. “ I have been so lonely to-day, 
with not a person to see me except the major and Anna, 
who were here a few moments this morning, and who 
are so absorbed in each other as to be of no account to 
any one else. I do believe he is in earnest, and means to 
marry her ; and then won’t we have to bow to my Lady 
Rossiter ! Where’s Phil, and why has not he been here 
to-day ?” 

“ Phil has gone ; you surely knew that, or, at least, 
that he was going ; he was here yesterday,” Ethel said ; 
and in her voice there was a hardness, as if her cousin 
were trifling with her thus to ask for her brother. 

But she knew better when she saw how white 
Queenie grew, as she repeated after her : 

‘‘ Gone . and I knew of his going ! You are mis- 
taken ; I know nothing. Where has he gone ? ” 

“To India ! ” Ethel said. 

And then Reinette grasped the chair near which she 
was stQnding with both hands, and leaning heavily upon 
it, askcvi, in a half whisper, for something was choxing 
her so that she could not speak aloud : 


IfOlV QUEENIE BORE THE HEWS, 229 


“To India! For what' And how long will he be 
gone ? ” 

As rapidly as possible Ethel told all she knew of a 
matter which had taken them so by surprise, and which 
had so affected her mother that she was sick in bed. 

For a moment Queenie did not speak, but stood 
staring at Ethel, who, sure that she was in fault, went 
pitilessly on : 

“ We thought you had something to do with it ; that 
you sent him away, for it was after he came from here 
yesterday that he decided to go ; he had given it up 
before.” 

“ 1 sent him away ! — sent him to India to die, as he 
will ! No, no ; I did not do that,” Queenie cried, 
piteously. “ I said I could not marry him, and he my 
cousin ; and I could not, any more than you could 
marry him, he being your brother. But I did not think 
he’d go away. Oh ! what shall we do without Phil ? ” 

Reinette was sobbing passionately, and Ethel and 
Grace were crying with her, for Phil had made the 
happiness of their lives, and without him they were very 
desolate. 

“Did he speak of me?” Queenie asked, at last. 
“Did he leave no word? no message? no good-by?” 

“ He left this for you,” Ethel said, passing the letter 
to Queenie, who clutched it eagerly, but would not read 
it there with the sisters looking on. That they blamed 
her, and held her responsible for Phil’s India trip, she 
was certain, and she felt glad when they at last said good- 
night, and left her to herself and her letter — Phil’s letter 
-—which she read in the privacy of her room, and which 
nearly broke her heart. 

“ Dear Queenie,” he began, “ I am going away — for a 
year certainly, and perhaps, forever, for men of my 
habits, who have never been accustomed to hardships of 
any kind, die easily in that hot climate.” 

“ Oh-h ! ” and Reinette groaned bitterly, as she 


230 no IV QUEEN IE BORE THE NEWS, 


thought, “ Why did Phil say what will make me fee« 
like his murderer, if he should die out there." 

Then she read on : 

“ I am going to India on business for a firm in New 
York, of which Mr. Beresford’s uncle is the head. The 
salary is good, and the duties such as I can perform, and 
so I am going. Mr. Beresford made me the offer this 
morning, and with my usual indolence I declined it, but 
I did not then know your opinion of me ; did not know 
how you despised me for my effeminacy and laziness. 
Queenie, I do believe that hurt me more than your refusal 
of me. I might live without your love, perhaps, but not 
without your respect, and so I am going to begin life 
anew, with some aim, some occupation, and you shall 
never taunt me again with my idleness. But oh, Queenie, 
how I love you, and how I long to hold you in my arms 
as my own darling. It is a strange power which you 
have over us men — a power to hold us at your will by 
one glance of your eyes, or toss of your head. Other 
faces may be more beautiful than yours ; some would 
say that Margery La Rue’s was one of them, but there is 
something about you more attractive than mere regular- 
ity of feature or purity of complexion, and men go 
down before it as I have done, body and soul, with no 
hope or wish for anything else, if you must be denied me. 
May you never know how my heart is aching as I write’ 
this, my farewell to you ; and yet to have known and 
h.)ved you is the dearest thing in life, and the memory 
of you will help to make me a man. I know you will 
be sorry when I am gone, and miss me everywhere, but 
you will get accustomed to it in time. Some one else 
will take my place ; and, just here, although 1 do not 
protend to be so good or unselfish that it does not cost 
me ? pang to do it I would say a word for Mr. Beresford. 
He knows why I go away, for I told him, and like the 
splendid fellow he is, he confessed what he said of me to 
you, and asked my pardon for it, and I forgave him, and 


IfOlV QUEENIE BORE THE NEWS. 231 


you mu SI do so, too, and not be hot, and rash, and bitter 
against him, as something tells me you may be, when 
you know I am gone, and that possibly Mr. Beresford 
suggested to you the words which made me go. He told 
me of your refusal of himself, but he hopes time may 
change you ; and if it does — oh, my darling, how can I 
say it, loving you as I do ? — if it does, don’t worry and 
tease him, but deal with him honestly and openly, as a 
true woman should deal with a true, honest man. And 
now, good-by, and if it is forever — if I never come back 
again — remember that I love you always, always ! and I 
shall carry your image with me wherever I go, and so, 
in fancy, I put my arms around you and hold you for 
a moment as my own, and kiss your dear face, feeling 
sure that if it were really so, that I was saying good-by 
to you forever and you knew it, you would kiss me back 
once at least, in token of all we have been to each other.” 

“ Oh, Phil, Phil, yes, a thousand times would I kiss 
you, if you were back again ! and I am so sorry for the 
nasty words I said about your idleness,” Reinette cried, 
as, with Phil’s letter clutched tightly in her hand, she 
lay upon her face sobbing bitterly, and wondering what 
life was worth to her now, that Phil was gone. 

“ I couldn’t marry him, I couldn’t, for he is my 
cousin !” she said; “and I do not love him that way, 
but he was so much to me, how can I live without him ?” 

And then there began to creep into her heart hot, 
resentful feelings toward Mr. Beresford, who had put it 
into her mind to taunt Phil with his idleness. 

“ I hate him — I hate him !” she said, stamping her 
little feet by way of emphasis, but when she remembered 
that Phil had forgiven him, and still held him as his 
friend, and wished her to do so, she grew more calm and 
less resentful toward him, but declined to see him, when, 
next morning, he rode over to Hetherton Place and 
asked for her. 

“Tell him I am sick,” she said to Pierre, “ and ' a i 


232 IfOlV QUEEN TE BORE THE NEW'S. 


see no one, unless it is Margery. Ask him, please, to 
call at her door, and tell her to come to me, for I am in 
great trouble." 

With a suspicion as to the nature of Queenie’s 
trouble, Mr. Beresford rode back to town and delivered 
the message to Margery, who went at once to her friend 
and tried to comfort her. But Queenie refused to be 
comforted. Phil was gone, and what was there now for 
her ? 

“You can bring him back. The ship does not sail 
for some days you say, and a word from you will change 
his mind," Margery said, caressing the bowed head 
resting on her lap. 

“Do you think — do you believe he would come back, 
if I were to write and beg him ?" Queenie asked, quickly, 
lifting up her tear-stained face. 

“ I’ve no doubt of it,” Margery said ; “but, darling, 
if you do that he will have a right to expect you to 
marry him. Sending for him to come back would mean 
nothing else, nor would anything else satisfy him." 

“ Then he must go," Queenie answered, with a rain 
of tears. “ I cannot marry my cousin ; that is a part of 
my religion. It would be hideous to do it. Phil must 
go ; but my whole life goes with him. Oh, Phil, I am 
nothing, nothing without you. Why were you so silly 
as to fall in love and so spoil everything?" 

That night, as Margery sat with her mother over their 
tea talking of Queenie, Mrs. La Rue said to her ; 

“ If Mr. Rossiter were not her cousin, do you think 
she would marry him ?" 

“ I have no doubt of it," Margery replied. “ She 
fancies she does not love him in that way, as she express- 
es it, but if the obstacle of cousinship were removed, I 
believe she would feel differently. Poor .ittle girl, she is 
so cast down and wretched, thinking she has driven hin; 
away to die, as she declares he will." 

Mrs La Rue had listened intently to all Margery 


MRS. LA RUE'S RESOLUTION. 


m 


told her of Reinette’s distress, and there were tears in 
her eyes as she cleared away the tea things, and busied 
herself with her household cares. 

“ Poor little girl,” she whispered to herself. Would 
her love for him outweigh everything — everything, I 
wonder ? Is it mightier than her pride ?” 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 

MRS. LA rue’s resolution. 



HERE was a worn, tired look on Mrs. La Rue’s 
face next morning, which she accounted for 
by saying she had not slept well, and that her 
head was aching. A walk in the crisp au- 
tumn air would do her good, she said ; and soon after 
breakfast she left the house, and started toward Hether- 
ton Place. Twice on the causeway she sat down to rest, 
and once on the bank by the side of the road which led 
up the long hill. Here she sat for a long time, with her 
head bowed upon her knees, while she seemed to be ab- 
sorbed in painful, and even agonized reflection, for she 
rocked to and fro, and whispered occasionally to her- 
self. In the distance there was the sound of wheels — 
some one was coming ; and not caring to be seen, she 
arose, and climbing the low stone wall, went up the 
steep hill-side to the ledge of rocks, where Phil had sat 
with Queenie and heard his doom. It was the first time 
Mrs. La Rue had ever been there, and for a moment she 
stood transfixed with surprise and delight at the 
lovely view before her. In the clear autumn air objects 
were visible for miles and miles away, but it was not so 
much at the distart landscape she gazed ?s at the scene 


234 


MRS, LA RUE'S RESOLUTION 


directly about her— at the broad, rich acres of Hethertoa 
Place, stretching away to the westward, and southward, 
and eastward, and embracing some of the most valuable 
land in Merrivale ; at the house itself, standing there on 
the heights so stately and grand, with aristocracy and 
blood showing themselves from every casement and 
door-post ; and lastly, at the beautiful grounds, so like 
the parks of some of the old chateaus in France, with 
their terraces, and winding walks, and pieces of statuary 
gleaming here and there among the evergreens. 

“A goodly heritage truly,” the woman said. “And 
would she give it all for love? God only knows, and I 
can only know by trying. If she will see me, I must go 
forward ; if she refuses, I shall take it as a sign that I 
must forevermore keep silent.” 

Thus deciding, she walked quickly across the fields, 
and soon stood ringing at the door, which was opened 
by Pierre himself. 

“ M iss Hetherton was still in her rootn,” he said, 
“ but he would take any message madame chose to give 
him and his manner showed plainly the great distance 
he felt there was between his mistress and the woman 
who, he knew, was born in the same rank of life as 
himself. 

“ Tell her Margery's mother is here, and very anxious 
to see her,” Mrs La Rue said ; and with a bow, Pierre 
departed, leaving her alone in the hall. 

He had not asked her to sit down, but she felt too faint 
and tremulous to stand, and, sinking into a chair; leaned 
her head against the hat-stand, and shutting her eyes, 
waited as people wait for some great shock or blow 
which they know is inevitable. How long Pierre was 
gone she could not guess, for she was lost to all 
consciousness of time, and was only roused when he 
laid his hand upon her shoulder and demanded what 
was the matter, and if she were sick. Then she looked 
up, and showed him a face so white, so full of pain, and 


MRS. LA RUKS RESOLUTION. 


235 

dread, and horror, that he asked her again what was the 
matter. 

“Nothing, nothing,” she answered, sharply. “Tell 
me what did she say? Will she see me?” 

“ She bade me tell you she could not see you, but if 
your errand was very particular or concerned Miss 
Margery, you were to give it to me,” Pierre replied, and 
’n an instant the whole aspect of the woman changed, 
the deathly pallor left her face, and the look of dread 
and anguish was succeeded by one of intense rel.ef as 
she exclaimed : 

“ Thank God ! thank God ! ■^or I could not have 
borne it. I could not have done it at the last, and now 
I know it is not required of me. I have no errand, no 
message; good-morning,” and she darted from the door, 
while Pierre looked wonderingly after her, saying to 
himself, “ I believe the woman is crazy.” 

And in good truth insanity would best describe Mrs. 
La Rue’s condition of mind as she sped down the wind- 
ing hills and across the causeway, until the bridge was 
reached, and then she paused, and leaning far over the 
railing looked wistfully down into the depths below, as 
if that watery bed would be most grateful to her. Sui- 
cide was something of which Mrs. La Rue had thought 
more than once. It was the phantom which at times 
haunted her day and night, and now it looked over her 
shoulder and whispered : 

“Why not end it now and forever? Better to die 
than live to ruin that young life, and know yourself 
loathed and despised by the creature you love best. 
Sometime in your fits of conscientiousness you will tell, 
as you were tempted to do just now, and then ” 

Mrs. La Rue gave a long, gasping shudder as she 
thought, “What then ?” and leaned still farther over the 
parapet beneath which the waters of the Chicopee were 
flowing so sluggishly. 

“ Ves, better die before I am left to tell am. .vc the 


JS6 MRS. LA RUE'S RESOLUTION. 


love in Margery’s face turn to bitter hatred. Oh, Mar- 
gery, my child. Mine, by all that is sacred ! I cannot 
die and go away from her forever, for if there be a here- 
after, as she believes, we should never meet again. Her 
destiny would be Heaven, and mine blackness and 
darkness of despair, where the worm dieth not, and the 
fire is not quenched ! She read me that last night, little 
dreaming that I carry about with me the worm wliich 
dieth not, and have carried it so many years, and oli, 
how it does gnaw and gnaw at times, until I am tempted 
to shriek out the dreadful thing. Oh, God, forgive me, 
and help me to hold my tongue, and keep the love of 
Margery.” 

She had drawn back from the railing by this time and, 
gathering her shawl around her, she started for home, 
where she found Margery in the reception-room alone, 
busily engaged on a dark-blue silk, which Anna Fer- 
guson had deigned to give her to make, and for which 
she was in a huriy. She had been there that morning to 
see about it, and had found a great deal of fault with 
some trimming which she had ordered herself, and had 
insisted' that the dress must be finished by twelve o’clock, 
as she was going with Major Lord Rossiter to West 
Merrivale to see a base-ball match on the Common. 

“The match does not come off until four,” Margery 
said, “ and if you can give me till half-past two I shall 
be so glad.” 

But Miss Anna was decided ; she must have it at 
welve, or not at all, and when Margery asked if she 
would send for it, as the girl who usually took parcels 
home was sick, she answered promptly ; 

“ No, it is not my business to do that.” 

And Margery bore the girl’s insolence quietly, and 
promised that the dress should be done, and put aside 
Mrs. Col. Markham’s work to do it, because she knew 
Mrs. Markham was a lady and would not insult her if she 
chanced to be disappointed. But she felt the ill-bred 


MRS. LA RUES RESOLUTION. 


237 

girl’s impertinence keenly, and her cheeks weie un- 
usually red, and her lips very white, when her mother 
entered the room, and, bending over her, kissed her with 
a great, glad tenderness as we kiss one restored to us 
from the gates of death. 

‘‘You look tired and worried, ma petite^' she said, “and 
you are working so fast. I thought that dress was not 
to be finished till to-morrow.” 

“Nor was it,” Margery answered, “but Miss Fer- 
guson has been here and insists upon having it at twelve, 
and she was so overbearing, and found so much fault, 
and made me feel so keenly that I was only her dress- 
maker, that I am a little upset, even though I know she 
is not worth a moment’s disquietude.” 

“ Poor Margery ! It is to the caprices of such people 
as she that you are subjected because you are poor,” 
Mrs. La Rue said, caressing the golden head bent so low 
over Anna’s navy-blue, on the sleeve of which a great 
tear came near falling. “ You ought to be rich, like Miss 
Hetherton. You would be happier in her place, would 
you not, my child?” 

“No, mother,” and Margery’s beautiful blue eyes 
looked frankly up into her mother’s face. “ I should 
like money, of course, but I am very happy as I am 
except when people like Anna insult me and try to make 
me feel the immeasurable distance there is between them- 
selves and a dressmaker. I like my profession, for it is 
as much one as that of the artist or musician, and if I 
were rich as Queenie I do believe I should still make 
dresses for the love of it. So, mother mine, don’t bother 
about me. I am very happy — happier far, just now, than 
Queenie, who, though she may have riches in abundance, 
has no mother to love her, and care for her, and pet her, 
as I have.” 

“ Oh, Margery, child, you do love me, then you are 
glad I am your mother, unlike you as I am V Mrs La 


238 MRS. LA RUE^S RESOLUTION. 


Rue cried in a voice which was like a sob of pain, and 
made Margery look wonderingly at her, as she said : 

“ Why, mother, how strangely you act this morning. 
Of course I am glad you are my mother — the dearest and 
kindest a girl ever had. I cannot remember the time 
when you would not and did not sacrifice everything for 
me, and why should I not love you ?” 

You should, you ought,” Mrs. La Rue replied, “only 
you are so different from me that sometimes when 1 
think how refined and lady -like you are, and then re- 
member what I am — an uneducated peasant woman — I 
feel that I am an obstacle in your way, and that you 
must feel it, too, and wish you were some one else — some- 
body like Miss Hetherton — but you don’t, Margery, you 
don’t.” 

“Of course I don't,” Margery answered, laughingly, 
“for if I were Miss Hetherton, don’t you see, Anna 
would be my cousin, and that would be worse than a 
hundred peasant women ; so, little mother, don’t distress 
yourself or bother me any more, for my Lady Anna 
must have her dress by twelve, and it is nearly eleven 
now.” 

Taking the girl’s lovely face between her hands 
M rs. La Rue kissed it fondly, and then left the room, 
while Margery wondered what had happened to excite 
her so. Such moods, or states of mind, in her mother 
were not unusual, and since coming to Merrivale they 
had been more frequent than ever, so Margery was ac- 
customed to them, and ascribed them to a naturally 
morbid temperament, combined wdth a low, nervous 
state of health. 

“ I wonder w^hy she asks me so often if I love her and 
am happy? Maybe I do not show her my affection 
enough. I am not demonstrative, like her ; there’s very 
little of the French gush in me. I am more like the 
cold Americans, but I mean to do better and pet her 
more, poor, deal mother, she is so fond and proud of me,” 


MRS, LA RUE'S RESOLUTION. 


239 


Margery thought, as she kept on with her work, while 
her mother busied herself in the kitchen, preparing the 
cup of nice hot tea and slice of cream toast which at 
twelve she carried to her daughter, who could not stop 
for a regular meal. 

The navy-blue was at a point now where no one 
jould touch it but herself, and she worked steadily on 
until after one, when Anna again appeared, asking 
imperiously why the dress was not sent at twelve, as she 
ordered. 

“Because it was not done,” Margery replied, adding, 
“It is a great deal of work to change all that trimming 
as you desired.” 

“ It ought not to have been made that way in the 
first place,” Anna rejoined, and then continued, “ I must 
have it by two at the latest, and will you bring it your- 
self, so as to try it on me and see if it hangs right ? ” 

“ Yes, I’ll bring it,” Margery said, and an hour later 
she was trudging along Cottage Row with a bundle 
almost as large as herself, for the dress had many 
plaitings, and puffs, and bows, and must not be crushed 
by crowding into a small space. 

But Margery did not feel one whit degraded or 
abased, even though she met Mr. Beresford fade to face, 
and saw his surprise at the size of the bundle. Mr. 
Beresford was the only man who had ever interested 
Margery in the least, and she often wondered why she 
should feel her blood stir a little more quickly when she 
saw him. He was so proud, and dignified, ana reserved, 
though always a gentleman and courteous to her, and 
now he lifted his hat very politely, and, with a pleasant 
smile, passed on, thinking to himself how beautiful the 
French girl was, and what a pity, too, that she had not 
been born in the higher ranks of life, with such people 
as the Rossiters, and Helhertons, and Beresfords. 

Miss Anna was waiting impatiently, and all ready to 
step into her dress, v/hich fitted her perfectly, and was so 


240 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


becoming, and gave her so much style that she 
condescended to be very gracio as and familiar, and as 
she looked at herself in the glass, she said : 

“ Why, La Rue, you are a brick ; how lovely it is ! 
I have not a word of fault to find ! ” 

“ I am glad if it suits you. Good-afternoon, Miss 
Ferguson,” Margery said, quietly, and then walked 
away, while Anna thought : 

“ If she were a grand duchess she could not be more 
airy. I wonder who she thinks she is, any way ? 
Queenie has just spoiled her with so much attention, and 
she only a dressmaker ! ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 

HETHER we are sorry or glad, time nevei 
stops for us, but the days and nights go on 
and on, until at last we wonder that so long 
a period has elapsed since the joy or sorrow 
came which marked a never-to-be-forgotten point in our 
lives. 

And so it was with Queenie; she could not be as 
wretched and disconsolate always as she was during the 
first days of Phil’s absence. She was of too light and 
buoyant a temperament for that, and after a little she 
woke to the fact that life had still much happiness in 
store for her, even though Phil could not share it with 
her. She had received a few words from him written just 
before the steamer sailed — words which made her cry as if 
her heart would break, but which were very precious to 
her because of their assurance that whatever might befall 
the writer she would always be his queen, his love^ 
whose image was engraven on his heart forever. 



LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


241 


And Queenie had answered the note, for it was 
nothing more, and filled four sheets with her passionate 
longings for the naughty boy, as she called him, who was 
not satisfied to be her cousin, but must needs seek to be 
her lover, and so had made her life miserable. 

This letter was sent to Rome, for Phil was to take 
the overland route to India and visit the Imperial City 
on the way. He had promised to write from every 
point where he stopped, and so he did not seem so very 
far away, and Queenie grew brighter and gayer, and 
consented to see Mr. Beresford, whom she had persist- 
ently ignored, and after rating him soundly for the part 
he had had in sending Phil away, she became very 
gracious to him, f^r Phil had forgiven him, and she 
must do so, too, and she rode with him one day after his 
fast horse, and was so bright, and coquettish, and 
bewitching, that Mr. Beresford forgot himself, and in 
lifting her from the carriage held her hand tighter in his 
than was at all necessary. But Queenie withdrew it 
quickly, and with her usual frankness, said : 

“You are not to squeeze my hand that way, Mr. 
Beresford, or think because I rode with you, that you 
are on probation, as you call it, for you are not. I am 
not trying to reconsider, and never shall.” 

This state of things was not very hopeful for Mr. 
Beresford, who, nevertheless, drove away more in love 
than ever with the little lady of Hetherton, who, after he 
was gone, went to her room, where she found on her 
dressing-table a letter which Pierre had brought from 
the office during her absence. It was a foreign letter, 
post-marked at Mentone, France. Re'-;iette's first ex- 
clamation was : 

“ From the agent. Now I shall hear from Christine.” 

This was the thing of all others which she had 
greatly desired, but now that it seemed to be within 
her grasp, she waited and loitered a little, and took off 
her hat, and shawl, and gloves, and laid them carefully 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


242 

away, and picked a few dead leaves from a pot of 
geraniums in the window, before breaking the seax. 
And even then she hesitated with a strangely nervous 
feeling, as if from fear that the letter might contain 
something she would be happier not to know — some- 
thing her father would have withheld from her, had he 
been there with her. 

“But no," she said at last, “how foolish I am. 
Christine was faithful to my mother, and father pension- 
ed her for it, as he ought to do, and those vile, evil- 
minded Polignies thought there was harm in it. They 
did not know my father, or what stuff the Hethertons 
are made of. So saying, she opened the letter and read : 

“Mentone, France, Oct. i8, 18 — . 
“7<? Miss Hetherton^ of Merrivak. 

Worcester Co., Afass.y U. S. A. 

“My employer, M. Albrech, is gone away for a few 
days, and told me to open his letters, and, if necessary, 
answer them for him. So when yours and Monsieur’s 
came, I opened and read ; that is, read yours, but Mon- 
sieur’s w’as in English, and it took a long time for 
me to make out that it meant the same as yours, and 
asked information of one Christine Bodine, pensioner of 
M. Hetherton, deceased." 

“ That was Mr. Beresford who sent him an English 
letter. What business has he to pry into my affairs ?" 
Reinette exclaimed, and her cheeks were scarlet, and her 
breath came hurriedly, and then seemed to cease alto- 
gether, as she read on : 

“ I could not remember any one by that name, but 
there is a certain Madame Henri La Rue^ to whom, by 
reference to M. Albrech’s books, I find that moneys were 
paid regularly by Messrs. Polignie & Co., Paris, for a 
M. Hetherton, until last summer, when the entire pria- 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


243 

Cipal A’ IS sent to Madame La Rue, at ‘ Oak Bluffs, Mar* 
tha’s Vineyard, Mass , U. S A.,’ where it seems she is liv- 
ing, though whether she is the person you are wishing to 
find I do not know. Your billet to Christine Bodine J 
will keep until M. Albrech returns, and if he knows the 
woman he will forward it. 

“ Hoping my letter is satisfactory, I arn 
“Your obedient servant, 

“ Louis Arnaud." 

“ Madame Henri La Rue, Oak Bluffs, Martha’* 
Vineyard, Mass. U. S. A.,” Reinette kept repeating to 
herself, while a feeling of terror took possession of her, 
and made her for a moment powerless to move or reason 
clearly. “ Who is this Madame La Rue, and where have 
I seen her?" she asked herself in a bewildered kind 01 
way, and then at last it came to her who Mrs. La Rue 
was, and where she had seen her. 

“ Margery’s mother ! Christine Bodine ! impos- 
sible ! ’’ she cried, reading Louis Arnaud’s letter again 
and again, while her thoughts went backward, and with 
lightning rapidity gathered up every incident connected 
with Mrs. La Rue which had seemed strange to her, and 
made her dislike the woman for her unwarrantable 
familiarity. 

As distinctly as if it were but yesterday she recalled 
theii first meeting in Paris in Margerv^’s receiving-room, 
when Mrs. La Rue had stared at her so, and seemed so 
strange and queer; and since then she had so often 
offended with what appeared like over-gratitude for 
kindness shown to Margery. 

“And all the time when I was talking of my nurse 
and my desire to find her, she knew she was Christine 
and made no sign,” Queenie said ; “and once she bade 
me stop searching for her, as finding her might bring 
mor^ pain than pleasure. What does she mean, and 
why :loes she not wish me to know who she is? Was 


244 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE, 


there anything wrong about her — No, no, no!*’ and 
Reinette almost shrieked as she said the emphatic 
“ no’s/’ “ Mother trusted her ; mother loved her. I have 
it in her own words written to papa. ‘ Christine is 
faithful and tender as if she were my mother, instead of 
my maid ; and if I should die, you must always be kind 
to her for what she has been to me,’ she wrote, and that’s 
why he sent her the money. But why has she never 
told me ? What has she done? What is she? Yes, she 
was right. It is more pain than pleasure to find her; 
but if slie liad only told me who she was, it would have 
been such joy to know she was Margery’s mother — my 
Margery still, thank God, for she has had no part in 
this concealment. She has no suspicion that Cliristiue 
Bodine and her mother are one and the same." 

This mention of Margery helped Reinette, and the 
pain in her heart w^as not quite so heavy, or her resent- 
ment toward Mrs. La Rue so great. She was Margery’s 
mother, and whatever happened, Reinette would stand 
by the girl whom she loved so much. 

* ♦ « « « « 

“ Please, mademoiselle, have you heard the bell ; it 
has rung. three times, and dinner is growing cold," Pierre 
said, putting his head in at the door ; and then Reinette 
roused herself to find that it was getting dark, for the 
November twilight was fast creeping into the room. 

“Yes, Pierre, I know; I am not coming — I am not 
hungry. Tell them to clear the table," she saio, ab- 
stractedly; and then, as Pierre looked inquiringly at her 
she continued: “Pierre, come here, and shut the door, 
and come close to me, so no one can hear. Pierre, I’ve 
found Christine Bodine ! ’ 

“You have found her ? Where?* Pierre said, looking 
wonderingly at his young mistress, whose v hite factf 
and excited manner puzzled and alarmed him. 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


245 


“Here, Pierre, in Merrivale. Whilj l was searching 
for her across the water she was here, not a mile away, 
and never told me. Pierre, Mrs. La Rue is or was 
Christine Bodine ! ” 

Mon Eieu/' Pierre ejaculated, with a shrug of his 
shoulders and a rapid movement of his hands, “ Madame 
La Rue Christine Bodine! I am very much yes, I sup- 
pose I am very much astonished ! ” 

But he was not. He had never shared Reinette’s 
implicit faith in Christine, and he put things together 
rapidly, and to himself he thought : 

“ Yes, madame is Christine. I am not surprised but 
to Reinette he said, “ Who told you ? There must be 
some mistake, madame surely would never have kept 
silent so long." 

“ There is no mistake. I can trust you, Pierre, and 1 
begin to feel as if you were the only one I can trust. 
Everything and everybody is slipping away from me. 
This is the letter from the agent in Mentone, who paid 
her the money for Messrs. Polignie in Paris. You know 
you were in their office once with father and saw him 
give his check for twelve hundred and fifty francs to be 
sent to her. Read the letter, Pierre, and you will know 
all I do." 

She handed it to him, and striking a light he read it 
through, while Reinette watched him narrowly to see 
what effect it had upon him. But aside from frequent 
ejaculations of surprise he made no comment, and just 
then the dinner-bell rang again, this time long and loud 
as if the ringer were growing impatient. 

“Oh, that dreadful bell," Reinette exclaimed, putting 
her hands to her ears to shut out the sound. “Will they 
never stop ringing it, or understand that I am not com- 
ing? Go, Pierre, and tell them to clear the table away ; 
tell them 1 am sick and tired, and wish to be let alone • 
tell them anything to keep them away from me. No 
bod) must come to-night but you. Go quick, before 


240 


LETTERS FROM MEjYTONE. 


they ring ::gain, or Mrs. Jerry comes herseif. She must 
not know what we do.” 

Thus entreated Pierre departed with the message to 
Mrs. Jerry, and then went back to Reinette who sat with 
her hands clasped tightly together and a look on her 
white face which puzzled him, for he did not knaw that 
she was bravely lighting down a suspicion to harbor 
which would be to dishonor her father in his grave. 

“ Pierre,” she said, lifting her dry, heavy eyes appeal- 
ingly to him, and speaking like a sick child which wants 
to be petted ; “ Pierre, I am strangely shaken by this 
news, because I do not understand why Christine should 
wish to hide her identity from me, when she knew how 
I wanted to find her. It looks as if there was something 
which she wished to keep from me — something wrong 
in her life after she left us — and was married to M. La 
Rue. I had so much faith in and love for her, and now — 
oh, Pierre, it makes me cold, and sick, and faint. For- 
get that I am a woman ; try and fancy me a little girl 
again, as I was when you first came to Chateau des 
Fleurs, and take me up and carry me to the couch. I 
could not walk there to save my life, for the strength 
has all gone from my body.” 

Pierre had carried her in his arms many a time in the 
years gone by, and now he took her up gently, and lay- 
ing her upon the couch, brought a pillow for her, and 
fixed it under her head, and covered her with her shawl, 
and put fresh coal on the grate, for the November night 
was cold and chill, and outside the first snow of the 
season was beginning to fall. 

“Now sit down by me, Pierre,” she continued “and 
rub my hands, they are so numb and lifeless, and let me 
talk to you of the olden time, when we lived in the 
country and were so very happy.” 

“Yes, mademosielle,” Pierre said sitting dowt beside 
her and rubbing and chafing the limp white angers 
which seemed to have no vitality in them. 


247 


ATTERS FROM MENTONE, 

Pierre/’ she began, we were so happy when papa 
was alive ; he was so good. He was always kind to you, 
was he not ?” 

Yes, always.” 

“ And he was good to everybody, Pierre ?” 

“ Yes everybody.” 

“And — and — you were with him in places where he 
v/ould be under less restraint than when with me, and 
you think he had as few faults as most men, I am sure?” 

“ He had not a single fault,” Pierre said, emphatically, 
lying easily and unhesitatingly, thinking the end justified 
the means. 

He knew now that Reinette was wishing to be re- 
assured of her father’s truth and honor, and though he 
had but little faith that his late master had possessed 
either of those virtues to an overwhelming degree, he 
could not say so to the daughter ; he would sooner tell 
her a hundred lies, and take his chance of being forgiven 
by and by. 

“Thank you, Pierre,” she said. “You make me so 
happy. I like to think of father as a good, true, honest 
man ; and I believe Christine was good.” 

“ Did the servants at Chateau des Fleurs ever mention 
her as otner than a nice woman ? ” 

“ They never mentioned her at all. I never heard 
her name except from you and monsieur, and from him 
only twice — once in the office of Messrs. Polignie, and 
once in Liverpool.” 

“Yes, Pierre,” Reinette said, with a quick, gasping 
breath, “ I am sure Christine is a good woman. My 
mother trusted her and bade father be kind to her 
always. I have it in a letter written before she died, ana 
when Christine was with her. Mrs. La Rue is a good 
woman.” 

She kept asserting this as if she feared Pierre might 
doubt the fact, but if he did, he gave no sign, and merely 
replied : 


24 S LETTERS FROM MENTONE, 

“ She must be good to be the mother of Miss Mar- 
gery.” 

“Yes, Pierre,” and Reinette roused herself up, and 
pushing her heavy hair back from her face, said, joy- 
fully : “ I see it now ; I understand why she has not 
told me. She did not wish Margery or me to know 
that she once served in the capacity of my nurse, lest she 
should feel humiliated, and I, with my abominable 
pride, might think less of her ; that is it, I am sure.” 

“Unquestionably,” Pierre said, ready to assent to 
anything his young mistress might suggest, no matter 
how absurd. 

“ And, Pierre,” she continued, “ I shall, of course, 
tell Mrs. La Rue that I know who she is, but it is not 
necessary that all the world should know. We need 
tell no one else.” 

“ No, mademoiselle ; but what of Monsieur Beres- 
ford ? He wrote to M. Albrech, too ; he will get an 
answer ; he will know.” 

“ Of course,” Queenie said, impatiently. “ But I 
can trust him. I shall tell him to keep silent ; and now 
leave me, and do not let Mrs. Jerry, or any one, come 
near me. I am tired, and shall soon retire.” 

So Pierre left her alone with her thoughts, which 
kept her awake the most of the night, and the next 
morning found her suffering with one of her head-aches, 
and unable to leave her bed. It was a stormy Novem- 
ber day, and the wind blew in gusts over the hill, and 
drove before it clouds of snow, which was drifting down 
from the gray sky in great white feathery masses, but 
bad as was the day, it did not prevent Mr. Beresford 
from riding over to Hetherton Place, where he was met 
by Pierre with the message that Miss Hetherton had the 
headache, and could not see him. Mr. Beresford 
seemed disappointed, and was about turning away from 
the door, when he said, as if it had just occurred to him : 


LETTERS FROM MENTONE. 


249 


“By the way, do you know if Miss Hetherton re- 
ceived any letters from France yesterday i" 

“ She did receive one,” Pierre said, looking straight 
at the lawyer, and feeling sure that he, too, had heard 
from Mentone, and knew the secret of Christine Bodine. 

And he was right, for the same mail which brought 
the letter to Reinette had also in it one for Mr. Beresford 
from Mentone. It was a curious compound of English 
and French, which took Mr. Beresford nearly two hours 
to decipher. But he managed it at last with the help of 
grammar and dictionary, and had a tolerably accurate 
knowledge of its contents, which surprised and con- 
founded him almost as much as Queenie’s letter had 
confounded her. But in his letter were’a few words, or 
rather insinuations, which were omitted in Queenie’s 
and which affected him more than all the rest, and threv\^ 
a flood of light upon Mrs. La Rue’s reason for keeping 
her identity with Christine Bodine a secret from 
Reinette. Did Queenie know what he knew or sus- 
pected, Mr. Beresford wondered, and if so, how did she 
take it? What would she do? A burning, intense 
desire seized the usually calm, sober lawyer to have 
these questions answered. He must see Reinette and 
judge from her face how much she knew, and so he went 
to Hetherton Place. But Queenie would not see him. 
She was sick, and she had received a letter from France, 
So much he learned, and he rode back to his office, 
where, for the remainder of the day, he seemed in a 
most abstracted frame of mind, paying but little atten- 
tion to his clients, who had never seen him so absent- ' 
minded and grave before, and wondered of what he 
was thinking. Not of them and their business, but of 
Reinette and the change her coming to Merrivale had 
made in his hitherto quiet life. How she had turned 
everything upside down. It was like a romance whose 
pages he was reading, and now a fresh leaf had been 
turned which he wished to decipher, and since he could 


250 


TRYING TO READ THE RAGE. 


not see Reinette he must seek help in another quarterj 
and he, who had always been noted for uiinding his own 
business better than any man in Merrivale. waited 
impatiently for evening, when he meant to begin the 
new chapter. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

TRYING TO READ THE PAGE. 

HE night set in dark and stormy even for Novem- 
ber and the wind howled dismally through the 
tall elms which grew upon the common, while 
both sleet and rain were falling pitilessly, 
when Mr. Beresford left his office, equipped for an 
evening call. He was going to see Margery La Rue, 
whom he found alone, as her mother had retired to her 
room with a tooth-ache and sv/ollen face. Margery let 
him in herself, and looked fully the surprise she felt 
when she saw who her visitor was. It was not so much 
that he should come that night as that he should com^ 
at all which astonished the young girl, who, with a 
woman’s intuition, had read the proud man pretty accu- 
rately, and guessed that persons like her, whose bread was 
earned by their own hands, had not much attraction for 
him. But it was his early training, which was at fault, 
and not the real heart of the man himself. His mother 
had seldom done so much for herself as to arrange her 
own hair, and when her immense fortune slipped away 
from her, and left her comparativery poor, and compelled 
her sons, two as noble boys as ever called a womap 
mother, to choose professions and care for themselves, 
she could not bear the change, and with a feeling thn 
she would rather die than live and work, she died, aiv 



TRYING TO READ THE PAGE, 251 

very few mourned for her. With siujh a mother and a 
long line of ancestry on her side, as proud and exclusive 
as herself, it is not strange that Mr. Beresford should 
have imbibed some notions not altogether consistent 
with democratic institutions. He thought a great deal 
of family and blood, and though he was always polite 
and courteous to Margery when they met, he had uncon- 
sciously made her feel the gulf between them, and she 
had good cause to gaze on him wonderingly as she 
opened the door, and held it open a moment as if expect- 
ing him to give her some message from Queenie, as he 
had done w^hen Phil went away. Laughing good-humor- 
edly as he stepped past her into the hall, he said : 

“ I am coming in, you see, though I do not wonder 
that a call on such a wild night as this surprises you. 
But it is the weather which brings me here. I believe 
I have had the blues or something to-day, and need to 
talk to some one, and as Phil is gone, and Reinette is 
sick, I have come to call on you. I hope I am not 
unwelcome.” 

He was talking rather strangely, and not at all in a 
strain coriiplimentary to Margery, who, nevertheless, 
passed it off pleasantly, and said, with her pretty accent, 
which struck Mr. Beresford with a degree of newness. 

“ Thank you, Mr, Beresford ; I surely ought to feel 
honored to be No. 3. Let me see ; you said that as Mr. 
Rossiter was gone, and Reinette sick, you were reduced 
to the alternative of coming here to be rid of the blues. 
Is that it } or have my French ears misinterpreted your 
English meaning?” 

“That is the way it sounded, I will admit,” Mr. 
Beresford replied, “but I am a bungler anyway, so 
please consider that I have made you number one, for 
really I have been intending to call for some time.” 

He took the seat she offered him, and moved it a 
little more in front of her, where he could look directly 
at her as she bent over her w'ork, which, with his per- 


252 TRYING TO READ THE PAGE, 

mission, she had resumed, and which, as it was a sacque 
for Miss Anna, must be finished as soon as possible. 

How graceful every motion was, and how well her 
dress of black cashmere, with soft lace ruffles at her 
throat and sleeves, became her, and how very beautiful 
she was both in face and form, with her golden hair 
rippling over her finely shaped head, her dazzling com- 
plexion, her perfectly regular features, and, more than 
all, her large, clear, sunny blue eyes, veiled by long, 
fringed lashes, and shaded by eyebrows so heavy and 
black, that they seemed almost out of place with that 
hair of golden hue. But they gave her a novel and 
distingue look, and added to her beauty, which, now that 
he was studying her, struck Mr. Beresford as something 
remarkable, and made his eyes linger on the fair face 
with more admiration even than curiosity. But the 
likeness he sought for was not there, unless it were in 
the occasional toss of the head on one side — the signifi- 
cant shrug of the shoulders, or gestures of the hands — 
and something in the tone of the voice when it grew 
very earnest as she talked to him of Reinette, who was 
not like her in the least. In feature and complexion, 
Margery was the handsomer of the two. Mr. Beresford 
confessed that to himself with a kind of jealous pang, as 
if, in some way, a wrong were done the dark-faced, dark- 
eyed Queenie, who, put side by side with Margery La 
Rue, would, nevertheless, win every time, and make 
people see only herself, with her wonderful sparkle, and 
brightness, which threw everything else into the shade. 
Queenie was the diamond, and Margery the pearl, and 
they were not at all alike, and Mr. Beresford felt puz- 
zled, and inclined to believe the agent in Mentone a 
slanderer, especially after he had talked with Margery 
awhile, of her friend. 

“You have known Reinette a long time?” le said 
and she replied : 

“ Yes, a long time — ever since we were little girls — 


TRYING TO READ THE PAGE. 


253 


though it seems but yesterday since she climbed the nar- 
row, winding stairs up to that low room, where I staid 
aii day long with no company but the cat, and nothing 
besides my playthings to amuse me, except to look down 
into the narrow street below, the Rue St. Honore, and 
watch the carts, and carriages, and people as they passed, 
and wonder when mother would come home, and if she 
would bring me, as she sometimes did, a bon-bon, or a 
white, croissant, which I liked so much better for 

my supper than our dark, sour bread.” 

“Yes,” Mr. Beresford said, leaning forward and 
listening eagerly to what Margery was telling him of 
her early life, and wondering a little that she should be 
so communicative. 

“ Most girls would try to conceal the fact that they 
had once known such poverty,” he thought, but he did not 
know Margery La Rue, or guess that it was in part her 
pride which made her talk as she was talking. 

She was naturally reserved and reticent with regard 
to herself, but to him, whose value of birth, and blood, 
and family connections she rightly guessed, she would 
speak openly, and show him that it was something more 
than a mere dressmaker — a sewing-woman — whom he 
v/as honoring with his society, and in whom he was 
interested in spite of himself. She divined that readily, 
by the kindling of his eyes when they met hers as she 
talked, and by some of those subtle influences by which 
a woman knows that the man she is talking with is enter- 
tained and pleased with herself as well as with what she 
is saying. 

So, when he said to her, with a kind of pity in his 
tone, “And you were so desolate as that when Reinette 
found you ?” she answered : 

“ Yes, more desolate than you can guess — you who 
have never known what poverty means in a large city 
like Paris. But I was not unhappy, either,” she added, 
quickly. “I had too much love and petting from 


254 


TRYING TO READ THE RAGE. 


my mother for that. I was only lonely in her absencCj 
for she worked at a hair-dresser’s and was gone all 
day, and I kept the house and got the meals for father 
till he died." 

Your father — ^yes," Mr. Beresford repeated. “ Whra 
was he, what did he do, and w’hen did he die ?" 

He seemed very eager in his questionings, and mis- 
taking his meaning altogether, Margery’s cheeks flushed, 
but her voice was steady and clear as she replied : 

“ I do not know that he did anything. I think it is a 
fashion in France more than here for the women to work 
and the men to take their ease. At all events, father liad 
no regular occupation that I know of. Sometimes he 
acted as guide to strangers, for he could speak a little 
English, and sometimes he was employed for a few days 
as waiter at some of the Duval restaurants, and once he 
took mother and me there to dine. That is the white 
day of my life, as connected with him. Reinette heard 
of me from old Lisette, the laundress, who lived on the 
floor below, and she came up to our humble room in her 
scarlet cloak and hood trimmed with ermine, and filled it 
with glory at once. You know what a halo of brightness 
seems to encircle her, and affect everything around her. 
And how she did sparkle and glow, and light up the 
whole room, as she sat there in that hard wooden chair 
with me standing awkwardly by, in my coarse high-necked 
working apron, with broom in hand, and gazing at her 
as if she had been a being from another spiiere." 

How rapid and excitedly she talked, gesticula liu-^ 
with her hands, which were as small and white as those 
of any lady, and how large and bright her blue eyes 
grew, as she described that first interview with Reinette 
so vividly that Mr. Beresford could see tr:e low room, 
far up the winding stairs, the humble furniture, the bare 
floor, the smoldering fire on the hearth, the wooden chair 
the dark' eyed little girl in scarlet and ermine who sat there 
with the captured cat in her lap, talking to another child 


TRYING TO READ THE RAGE, 


«S5 

quite as beautiful as herself, though of another type of 
beauty, and clad in the coarse garments of the poor. He 
could see it all so plainly, and forgetting for a time why 
he was there, he listened still more intently, while Mar- 
gery went on to tell him of the Champs d’Elysees, where 
she wore the scarlet cloak and olaved she was Mr, 
Hetherton’s little girl, while Queenie sat demurely at 
her side, clad in homely garments, and making believe 
that she was Margery La Rue, whose home was up the 
winding stairs in the Rue St. Honore. 

“I think that one act bound me to her forever,” Mar- 
gery said, “ though it was the beginning of many make- 
believes and many deeds of kindness, for through 
Queenie’s influence her father paid my expenses in part 
at the English school which she attended, and where I 
learned to speak your language and all I know besides, 
and after that she stood my fast friend in everything and 
treated me more like a sister than an inferior, as I am, 
by birth and social position, I think her love has never 
failed me since the day she first came to me and brought 
the glorious sunlight with her. So, do you wonder that 
I love her ? I would lay down my life for her, if need 
be — would sacrifice everything for her, and I sometimes 
wish that I might have the chance to show how much I 
love her, and would endure for her sake.” 

Margery paused here, and with clasped hands, and 
eyes which had in them a rapt, far-away look, seemed 
almost to see looming on the horizon not far in the 
distance the something for which she longed, and which, 
when it came, would test her as few women have ever 
been tested in their love for another. 

It was not possible that the dark shadow touched her 
now, although it was so near, and yet she shivered a 
little and drew a long breath as she at last came back to 
the present and turned her eyes upon Mr. Beresford, wh^ 
said to her : 


a 56 TRYING TO READ THE RAGE. 


“Didyouevei see Queenie's father? — did you know 
him, I mean — yon or your mother?” 

“No, neither of us,” Margery answered promptly, “I 
saw him once when Queenie and I were riding in the 
Bois, and she made him come and speak to me, but I did 
not like him much. He impressed me as one very proud 
and haughty, who only endured me for Queenie’s sake. 
He was fine-looking, though, and his manners were very 
elegant. Did you know him, Mr. Beresford ?” 

“ Scarcely at all, as I was a mere boy when he vrent 
away, but I have heard much of him from the villagers ; 
he was not very popular, I imagine,” Mr. Beresford 
replied, and then the conversation drifted into other 
channels, and they talked of Phil and Anna, and her 
engagement with the major, which was generally under- 
stood, but nothing more was said of Margery’s early 
life. 

Mr. Beresford had not succeeded in reading the page 
just as he had expected to read it, and was a good deal 
puzzled and perplexed when, at rather a late hour, he 
said good-night to Margery, and went back to his rooms 
at the hotel, with his mind full of what she had told him 
of her life as connected with Reinette Hetherton, and 
full too with thoughts of herself, and after he had re- 
tired to his bed, and a feeling of drowsiness began to 
steal over him, there came to him another face tnan 
Queenie’s — a fairer face, with golden hair and eyes of 
blue — and in his troubled dreams the face hid Queenie’g 
from him, and a voice with more of a foreign accent 
than Queenie’s was .sounding in his ears. 

It was very late when he awoke, with a confused 
vision of black eyes and blue eyes dancing before him, 
and hastily dressing himself and swallowing his break- 
fast, he started :.or his office, where to his surprise hf 
found Reinette He herton wqijng for him. 


THE INTERVIEW, 


257 


CHAP;rER XXXI. 

THE INTERVIEW. 

EINETTE had thought and thought till her 
head seemed bursting with the effort to solve 
the mystery of her nurse’s silence. Had she 
done anything that she was ashamed to tell, 
and if so what was it, and did it concern any one but 
herself ? 

“No, I will not believe it,” she said more than once, 
with a striking out of her hand as if thrusting something 
aside. “I will not believe it. There is some good 
reason for her conduct which she can give me, and I am 
going to her to know the truth, but the world will not be 
as charitable as I and will say bad things of her, no 
doubt. So to the world she must remain Mrs. La Rue, 
and nobody will ever know tlfat she is Christine, except 
Mr. Beresford, who, of course, knows it now, for Louis 
Arnaud has written to him, no doubt. But I can trust 
him, and I shall ask him to keep the knowledge to him- 
self.” 

After this decision Reinette grew calmer ; the violent 
throbbing in her temples ceased, and she slept compar- 
atively well that night. But though the morning found 
her stronger and better, she felt nervous and unstrung, 
and shrunk with a great dread from confronting Mrs. 
La Rue and wringing her secret from her, if secret there 
were to wring. 

“I am so hurt and disappointed,” she thought, as she 
dressed herself for her calls. ‘ I have loved Christine so 
much, and wanted so to find her, and now she is this 
woman v/hom, for some unaccountable reason, I n^ver 
liked, though she is Margery’s mother and greatly 
superior to her class. There surely is something w 'Oug 
and T am going to find it out.” 




THE INTERVIEW. 


258 

The waiting for Mr. Beresford seemed a -ong time to 
the excited girl, though in reality it was not more than 
ten minutes from the time she entered tne office before 
she was closeted with the lawyer in his private room, 
where he received his clients who came to him on special 
business. And Reinette's was very special, or at least 
very private, and when the door was closed she plunged 
intjo it at once, by saying : 

“ Mr. Beresford, you have written to Monsieur 
Albrech, in Mentone, and asked about Christine Bodine.' 

She did not put it interrogatively, but as an assertion, 
and blushing guiltily, the lawyer replied : 

“Yes, I did write to him, asking information of the 
woman’s whereabouts. You were so anxious to find 
her, you know.” 

“ Hush ! ” Queenie said, pouring the full scorn of her 
blazing eyes upon him. “ Do not try to excuse your- 
self in that way. It was curiosity rather than a desire 
to serve me which prompted you to write, and you have 
had your reward. Louis Arnaud, Monsieur Albiech’s 
clerk, has answered your letter.” 

“ Yes, be has,” Mr. Beresford replied, and Reinette 
continued : 

I know it. I have one from him, too. Here it is, 
and I will read it to you.” 

She drew the letter from her pocket, and read it 
through in a clear, steady voice, as if its contents were 
just what she had expected. 

“You are not surprised, of course,” she said, wh^n 
she had finished. “ He told you that Christine was Mrs. 
La Rue. Where is the letter, and how did you make it 
out ?” 

“ It W3« written partly in English and partly in 
French, sc I did pretty well,” Mr. Beresford replied, and 
she continued : 

“ Did he write you anything more than he did me ? 
I have a right to know if there is any reason why she 


THE INTERVIEW, 


259 

•hould have kept herself from me in this manner. Show 
me the letter, Mr. Beresford.” 

Mr. Beresford knew she would persist in her de- 
mand until something was done to quiet her, and, going 
into the adjoining room where a fire was burning in the 
grate, he took Louis Arnaud’s letter from his pocket and 
threw it into the fire ; then, making a feint of hunting 
through pigeon-holes and on the table where piles of 
paper lay, he asked his clerk, so loud that Reinette could 
distinctly hear him, if he had seen a certain letter which 
he described. The clerk had not, but was finally driven 
to admitting that he might have torn it up that morning 
with other letters of no importance. He was repri- 
manded for his carelessness, and then Mr. Beresford 
returned to Reinette, feeling like a hypocrite, but think- 
ing the end justified the means. But Queenie was not 
deceived, and with a smile which had much bitterness in 
it, she said to him before he could speak : 

“ Do not trouble yourself with more deception. 
Your clerk never destroyed thkt letter, for you are not 
the man to leave it lying round. It is safe somewhere, 
as you know, and you do not wish to show it to me 
There was something in it which you will not tell me. 
But no matter ; I am going to Christine, and she cannot 
keep from me why she has made no sign that she was 
my old nurse, when she knew how much I wished to find 
her.’* 

“ Possibly she feared you might not think as much of 
Margery, if you knew she was your nurse’s daughter,” 
Mr. Beresford said, and Reinette replied : 

“ I have thou ’ht of that, but she should have known 
me better than to think anything could change my 
love for Margery. Perhaps she displeased papa after 
mother died, and he dismissed her for it, but paid her 
money all the same, because mother wished it. That 
would explain why father never was willing to talk to 


*60 


THE INTERVIEW, 


•ne about her, and always said he did not know where 
ihe was.” 

“ You used to question him of her, then ? ” Mr. Beres- 
ford said, and Reinette answered : 

“ Yes ; and he would tell me nothing. Evidently he 
did not like her, but I knew how strong his prejudices 
-v’cre if once be took a dislike to one, and so I attached 
no importance to them.” 

“ How long did she live with you as your nurse after 
your mother’s death ? ” Mr. Beresford asked, and Reinette 
replied : 

“ I do not know ; a year or so, I think, though all 
my knowledge of that part of my life seems to be a blank ; 
and where v/as Margery then ?” 

She put this question more to herself than to Mr, 
Beresford, who, nevertheless, replied : 

“ Perhaps Christine was married unknown to your 
father, who, when he found it out, was angry, as it took 
a valuable nurse from his child.” 

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Reinette, said, eagerly. “It 
was something of that nature, no doubt, and you lawyers 
are shrewd enough to see it, while I might have groped 
in the dark forever. I am glad you thought of that, and 
Mr. Beresford, you must tell no one what you heard from 
Louis Arnaud. There are many suspicious people in the 
world who would say hard things of Christine and — pos- 
sibly — connect the trouble in some way with — with — 
father — and I will not have his name coupled with hers 
in any way My father was a gentleman and a Hether- 
ton.” 

Mr. Beresford bowed an acquiescence to the fact that 
her father was a gentleman and a Hetherton. And if 
ther%i was any merit in being the latter, she certainly was 
a verv fair representative of it as she stood up so proud 
and calm, and uttered her protest against her father s 
name being mixed with that of Christine Bodine. 


CHRISTINE, 


261 


I am going there uow,” she, said, adjusting her 
shawl and drawing on her gloves, “ and when I see you 
again I shall know eveiything there is to know of 
Christine Bodine.” 

Mr. Beresford felt a little doubtful on that subject; 
but said nothing, and going with her to her carriage 
l:elped her in, and then in a very thoughtful mood 
returned to his office, wondering what would be the 
result of that call on Christine Bodine. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

CHRISTINE. 

was more than a toothache and swollen face 
which had ailed Mrs. La Rue, and sent her to 
her room on that night when Mr. Beresford 
called upon Margery. She had a toothache, 
it is true, and was suffering from the effects of a severe 
cold, under cover of which she hid the terrible pain 
which was making her sick with nervous apprehension 
lest, at last, she was to be confronted by the girl whom 
she feared and shrank from more than from all the world 
beside, unless it was Margery, her dearly loved, beautiful 
child, who had brought her the letter which affected her 
so strangely. It had been forwarded from Oak Bluffs, 
and postmarked originally at Mentone, and it read as 
follows : 

“ Madame La Rue. — Inclosed find a note from Miss 
Hetherton, who has v/ritten asking your whereabouts 
And that this might be forwarded to you. In my 
absence, my clerk, Louis Arnaud, took charge of my 
business letters, and, it seems, answered the young lady, 



262 


CHRISTINE. 


telling her your address. Had I been home this vrDuld 
not have occurred, but it cannot now be helped. 
Hoping no great harm will come of it, I am 

“Your ob’t servant, 

“ M. Albrech.” 

This letter Margery had taken from the office, and 
wondered in a vague kind of way what it contained, and 
why M. Albrech had written to her mother again, when 
she had supposed her business relations with him 
finished. Since the time when Margery first learned to 
write, it had been a distinctly understood thing that both 
she and her mother were to respect each other’s 
correspondence, and Margery would as soon have 
broken the seal of a letter directed to a stranger as to 
her mother, consequently she had never known just 
what was in the letters which had passed between Mrs. 
La Rue and M. Albrech, of Mentone. She had always 
known since her father’s death that her mother had at 
stated times received a certain amount of money from 
some source unknown to her; and she knew, too, that 
latterly the annuity had ceased, because, as her mother 
said, the person who paid it was dead. That the sum 
was very small she had been made to believe, and her 
mother had told her once, when she asked what became 
of it, that it was safely invested in stocks and bonds in 
Paris, and was to be kept for her as a dowry when she 
was married, or to be used before if absolutely neces- 
sary. 

“ But who gives it to yea ? ” Margery had once 
inquired, and her mother had replied : 

“ A gentleman in Paris, whose wife was very fond of 
me. I was her maid first, and after she died took care 
of her child.” 

And Margery, wholly unsuspicious, accepted this 
explanation as all there was to tell, and received the 


CHRISTINE, 


263 


Impression somehow that the gentleman’s name was 
Polignie, and never dreamed of the guilt, and sin, and 
terrible remorse which haunted her mother so continu- 
ally, and had made her grow old so fast. Margery 
could remember her when she was bright and pretty, 
with a sparkle in her dark eyes and a bloom upon her 
rheeks, which now were sunken and pale, while her 
long, black hair was streaked with gray, and within the 
last few months had been rapidly growing white. She 
had brought the Mentone letter, and given it to her 
mother without so much as looking at her, and thus she 
failed to see how white she was as she took the letter 
and went to her room to read it alone. 

“Probably it has something to do with my money,” 
she thought, seeking to reassure herself as she broke the 
seal and opened the envelope from which Queenie’s 
note dropped into her lap. 

Picking it up she read the address : “ Christine 
Bodine, care of M. Albrech,” and recognizing the hand- 
writing, which she had often seen on notes sent to her 
daughter by Reinette, she gave a low, gasping cry, 
while for a moment everything around her grew black, 
and she could neither see nor hear for the great fear 
overmastering her. 

“ Tracked at last,” she whispered, as she tried to read 
what M. Albrech had written, and- could not for the 
blur before her eyes. 

For months Mrs. La Rue’s remedy for nervousness 
had been morphine, which she took in constantly 
increasing doses, and she had resort to it row, and, 
swallowing half a grain, grew calm at last, and *-ead her 
agent's letter ; and then picking up the daint ^ note with 
Reinette’s monogram upon the seal, kissed it passion- 
ately, and cried over it as if it had been some living 
creature instead of a bit of perfumed paper, on which 
these lines were written : 


264 


CHRISTINE. 


** Hetherton P \ace, 

“ Merrivale, Worcester Co., Mass., U. S. A. 

* My Dear Christine : — Have you forgotten the 
little baby you used to bear in your arms years ago, in 
Paris and at Chateau des Fleurs ? Little Queenie they 
called me, though my real name was Reinette, and I am 
the daughter of Mrs. Frederick Hetherton, who died in 
Rome, and to whom you were so kind. I have it in 
mother’s letter written to father, in which she tells him 
how good and true you were to her and bade him always 
be kind to you for her sake. And I think he tried to be, 
for I have ascertained that he set apart a certain amount 
of money for you, which -was all very well, though I 
should have shown my gratitude in an altogether 
different way. I might have given you money if you 
needed it, but I should also have made you come home 
to us, and should have loved and petted you because you 
knew my mother, and were so good to her. And that is 
what I wish to do now. 

“ Papa is dead, as you perhaps know. He died on 
the ship before we reached New York, and I am living 
alone at Hetherton Place, his old home, which is almost 
as lovely as Chateau des Fleurs, with a much finer view. 
Christine, did you know my mother was an American ? 
She was, and her home was here in Merrivale, where my 
father found her and where I have a host of relatives on 
her side. But still I am very, very lonely, and I want 
you to come and live with me in America. I will try 
and make you so happy, and you will seem to bring me 
nearer to my mother, for you will tell me of her ; what 
she did and what she said of me the few days she had 
me before she died. I am sure to love you because she 
did, anv, in her first letters to her mother and sister aftei 
she rea<;hcd Paris she spoke of her good Christine, who 
was so i'ouch to her. 

“You see I am writing on the assumption that you 


CHRISTINE, 


265 


have no other ties. I always think of you as my dear old 
nurse, Christine, whom I sometimes fancy 1 can remem- 
ber. Did you not come to me once in the Bois when 
anotlier nurse had charge of me, and kiss, and cry 
over me, and give me a quantity of bon-bons ? Some 
suc.h scene comes up to me from the misty past, and you 
had such bright black eyes and so much color in your 
cheeks, and looked so pretty. Was that you, and why 
did you not Stay with me always? Write immediately 
and answer all these questions, and tell me you will come 
to your loving Reinette.” 


Oh, how the wretched woman writhed as she read 
this letter, with thuds of pain beating in her heart, and 
her eyes dim with burning tears. It was so kind, so 
affectionate in its tone, and so familiar too ; so uniike 
what Reinette’s manner toward her had been. 

“ Queenie, my darling, would you write to me thus if 
you knew ?” she moaned, as she rocked to and fro in her 
anguish, while at her work below Margery sat singing a 
little song she had learned in the Tabernacle at Oak 
Bluffs: 


“ There is rest for the weary. 
There is rest for you.” 


“ Rest for the weary,” Mrs. La Rue repeated, as the 
clear, sweet tones floated up to her. “ And I am weary, 
oh ! so weary ; but there is no rest for me, except in 
death, which some say is a long dreamless rest, and that 
I can have so soon, for my friend is always near me,” and 
she glanced toward the shelf where stood a vial of lauda- 
num to which she had resort when morphine did not 
avail to quiet her and bring forgetfulness. “ But I must 
see Margery once more,” she thought. “ I must kiss her 
again, and hear her call me mother.” 

It was nearly time now for the evening meal, and 
summoning all her strength and calmness, Mrs. La Rue 


13 


266 


CHRISTINE, 


went down stairs, and under cover of t^e fast-increasing 
darkness, managed so well that Margery suspected noth- 
ing, and attributed her mother’s pallor and weakness to 
the neuralgia from which she was suffering. 

“ I am going to bed early to-night," Mrs. La Rue 
said, when supper was over, and the table cleared away. 
“ I am feeling quite ill." 

Then Margery looked at her closely, and asked if it 
was anything more than neuralgia which ailed her. Was 
there bad news in the letter ? 

“ No — yes ; but nothing I can now explain," Mrs. 
La Rue replied ; then going up to her daughter, she 
kissed her twice, and said : “ Good-night, my darling. 
Do not speak to me when you come up to bed ; I may be 
asleep." 

Margery kissed her back, with no thought of what 
was in the mind of the miserable woman as she slowly 
climbed the stairs, and, going to her room, shut the door, 
and taking down her friend^ poured out what was to give 
her forgetfulness and rest. Drop by drop the dark 
liquid fell into the glass, until there were forty drops in 
all, and she held it to the light, and looked at it, and 
smiled as she thought of the morrow, when she would 
be deaf to Margery’s call, and deaf to Queenie’s re 
proaches, if she should come, as she might do now at aii} 
time. 

“ But I shall be gone from it forever, and Margery 
will think it an overdose taken accidentally to ease th< 
pain. Yes, this is better than the river ; and yet I am so 
hot arid feverish that the cold water would be gratefui 
to me, and this is just the night for such a deed, only 
Margery then would know I meant it, and I must not 
lose her respect. I must carry that with me at least. 
No, to sleep and never waken is the best. So, Margery, 
darling, and Queenie, too, good-by !’’ 

She raised the glass to her lips just as the door-bell 
rang a loud, clanging peak which made her start so 


CHRISTINE, 


267 

violently that the glass dropped from her trembling 
hand, and the poison was spilled on the floor. 

It was Mr. Beresford who rang, and Christine heard 
him speaking to Margery in the hall. The sound of 
their voices quieted her and for the time turned her 
from her terrible resolve. “ 1 will not die to-night ; 1 
wilLwait,” she said as she r leared away all traces of the 
broken glass, and then, uno '^ossing herself, went to bed, 
but not to sleep, for her th>'ughts were busy with the 
past, when she was young and innocent, and first entered 
the service of Margaret Hethei-ton. She could not re- 
member her father who died vrhcn she was two years 
old. Her mother had kept a cueap French pension in 
the suburbs of Paris, and Chrisbae had often assisted 
in waiting upon the guests who fiequented the house. 
As she was very pretty and bright and piquant she natu- 
rally attracted a good deal of attention, and someiimes 
words were said to her which she knew w ere insults, ano 
which she repelled with scorn for she war then honest 
and pure as a child, and would have shrank with horror 
from the future had it been shown to her. At the age of 
eighteen her mother died and she was left alon^ without 
money or employment. It was then that she saw an 
advertisement in the morning paper to the effect tuat a 
waiting maid was wanted by a young American lady, 
who could be seen at the Hotel Meurice every day for a 
week between the hours of twelve and two. As the 
terms offered were unusually liberal she resolved to apply 
for the situation, notwithstanding that she had had no 
experience. 

At the appointed hour she presented herself to Mar- 
garet, who was reclining upon a white satin couch, whde 
partly behind her Mr. Hetherton stood with folded arms, 
and ^ critical look upon his face. 

Accustomed as he was to the world, he saw at a glance 
that Christine Boding knew nothing of the habits of a 
fine lady, such as he meant his wife to be, now that sue 


268 


CHRISTINE, 


was removed from the Fergusons, a thought of whom 
made him shudder, Indeed, the girl, when questioned 
for references, and the address of her last employer, ac- 
knowledged freely that she had no references, and had 
never served as maid. 

“But I can learn,” she said ; “and I will serve ma- 
dame so faithfully. I should so like you to try me,’^ and 
she looked imploringly at Margaret, who saw something 
in the girl which pleased her. 

She was so young, and very pretty and plain in hei 
dress, and looked so good and trusty that her heart 
warmed toward her. References were nothing to her, 
and turning to her husband she said, in a low tone : 

“Oh, Frederick, I like her so much. I am sure she 
will suit. Let us take her.” 

But Frederick demurred, urging that she had no 
style, no appearance of a maid. 

“ But she is good, I am sure, and I want her,” the 
young wife pleaded, and Christine was retained, and en- 
tered upon her duties the next day. 

How peaceful, and happv, and innocent those first 
few months spent in Mrs. Hetherton’s service seemed to 
Christine now as she looked back upon them, and how 
sweet, and kind, and patient her mistress had always 
been with her, treating her more as an equal and a friend 
than as a servant, and thereby frequently calling down 
upon herself sharp reproofs from her husband, who did 
not approve of her familiarity with a maid. It showed 
at once a low-born taste, he said, and he wished his wife 
to conquer all such feelings, and, forgetting the past, re- 
member that she was now Mrs. Frederick Hetherton, of 
Paris. But Margaret could not forget the past, cr cease 
to pine for the dear ones at home, the plain, old-fashioned 
mother, whose ways she knew were homespun in the ex- 
treme, and not at all like the elegant manners of her 
proud husband, but who, nevertheless, was her mother, 
for whom she cried every day of her life. Laying her 


CHRISTINE, 


269 


head or. :he lap of her faithiul Christine she would sob 
Qut her homesickness, and talk by the hour of Merrivalc 
and its people, until Christine knew every rock and crag, 
and winding brook in the pleasant New England town, 
and knew pretty well what the Fergusons were, and hew 
they stood in Merrivale. 

They were of mutual benefit to each other — this 
mistress and maid, for vrhUe Christine anticipated every 
wish of Margaret, waiting upon her as if she had been a 
duchess, and teaching her the French language as well 
as the German, of which she had some knowledge. 
Margaret in turn taught her a little English, and during 
the many weeks when she was alone and her husband 
away with his friends, she gave her lessons in history, 
and geography, and arithmetic, so that Christine, who 
was apt and bright, became a much better scholar than 
was common to persons of her class, and astonished her 
mistress with her rapid improvement. Even Mr. Hether- 
ton began to notice her at last and marvel at the change 
in her, and when he was home he often found himself lin- 
gering longer in his wife’s apartments when Christine 
was there, with her saucy smile, her bright eyes, and her 
pretty way of saying things. Without any motive except 
that she wished to please him because he was madame’s 
husband she made herself necessary to him, and, carefully 
studying his wishes, ministered to him with the alacrity of 
a slave, and when he offered her money for extra services 
she refused to take it, and said that what she did was done 
for love of him and madame, who trusted and clung to the 
girl with a love which made the poor woman shiver with 
remorseful pain, as she remembered it now, Vvhen the sins 
of the past were confronting her so fearfully, and making 
her almost shriek aloud, as she recalled those days in 
Rome, when the husband was seeking his own pleasure, 
while the wife grew paler and thinner each day, and yet 
strove so hard to keep up, by talking of the great happi- 
ness in ^^ore for her, and surprise for him, if all wen* 


2^0 


CHRISTINE, 


well witii her, and she lived through the trial awaiting 
her. 

“Frederick is so fond of children, and be will be so 
happy and surprised when he hears of it. I am glad I did 
not tell him," she said, when at last the waiting and sus 
pense were over, and a little girl baby was pillowed on 
her arm. 

Christine could see that baby now, and feel the toucJj 
of its soft hands, and see the white, worn face upon the 
pillow, and the great blue eyes which followed her .so 
wistfully and questioningly, and at last had in them a 
look of terror and dread, as the days went by and no 
strength came to the feeble limbs, or vitality to the 
nerves. She was dying, and she knew it at last, and 
throwing herself into Christine’s arms, she sobbed like a 
little child. 

“ It is hard to die,” she said, “when I am so young 
and have so much to live for, now baby is born. And 
home is so far away, and mother, too, and Frederick — 
where is he, Christine ? He ought to be here, and I so 
sick and lonely.” 

Christine knew that very well, and her tears fell like 
rain upon the golden head resting upon her bosom, while 
she tried to comfort the young mother, who was so 
surely passing away. 

“Monsieur must come soon,” she said; “and then 
madame will be better, and we shall go back to Chateau 
des Fleurs and be so happy there.” 

But Margaret knew better. She would never go to 
Chateau des Fleurs — never see her husband again, and 
that grieved her the most, for all his neglect and coldness 
had not killed her love, and she longed for him now so 
much when she lay dying in Rome, with only her baby 
and Christine with her — Christine, to whom she said 
'*■ God bless you, and reward you according to your kind- 
ness and faithfulness to me !” 

Margaret had meant it for a blessing, but it was realb 


CHRISTINE. 


2 ^ 


B curse, and it had followed Christine ever since, until 
now, when her sin was finding her out, and making her 
writhe with anguish and fear. 

“ And yet I was kind to her," she whispered ; “ and 
she died in my arms, with her head upon my breast, and 
she kissed me twice upon my lips ; one was for me, she 
said, and one for the baby when she was old enough to 
know. Ah, me, those kisses ! how they burn like fire ! 
and I am burning, too — burning ! Is there a hell, I won- 
der, and is it worse than the torment I am enduring ?" 

Her mind was disordered, and she raved incoherently 
of Rome, and Chateau des Fleurs ; and Paris, and Mar- 
garet, and Reinette, until she was utterly exhausted, and 
growing quiet, at last fell into a sleep so deep that she 
did not hear Margery when she let Mr. Beresford out 
and came up to her room. 

“ Poor mother, she is resting sweetly, and I hope will 
be better to-morrow," Margery said, as she bent over the 
sleeping woman, whose face looked so white, and worn, 
and pinched. 

The next morning, however, Mrs. La Rue did not at- 
tempt to get up. She was too weak and sick, she said, 
and should keep her bed all day. ‘‘And Margery," s^'e 
added, with quivering lip and a pleading tone, don’t let 
any one in here, will you, if they come asking for me? 
Not any one ; promise, Margery." 

“No, mother, no one shall disturb you," Margery 
said, soothingly, “ and fortunately I have not much work 
on hand to-day, and can stay with you a great deal. 1 
must finish Miss Ferguson’s sacque, and that is all. Now 
try to sleep again. I can’t have such a woeful-looking, 
pale faced little mother on my hands. I shall have to 
send her off and get another one." 

She spoke playfully, but every word was a stab to 
the miserable woman, who said again : 

“ Remember, Margery, nobody is to come up here." 

“No. mother, nobody. You are safer than the old 


27 * 


REINETTE'S INTERVIEW 


bishop in his castle on the Rhine, for the rats did reach 
him there, and not so much as a mouse shall harm you 
liere, ^oau and with a kiss — the last — the very last, 

she would ever give as she gave that, she ran down stairs 
just as a carriage stopped at the gate and Reinette cam« 
rapidly up the walk. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


REINETTE's interview with MARGERY. 



EINETTE did not ring, but entered unan- 
nounced, like one who had but one thought, 
one purpose, and was resolved to carry it out 
with as little ceremony as possible. It was 
Aortunate for all parties that this was Margery’s dull sea- 
son, and there were no girls there with prying eyes and 
ctirious ears to listen, for Reinette was greatly excited 
now that the moment drew near when she could confront 
Christine, and she plunged at once into business by say- 
ing to Margery, “ Where is your mother ? I have come 
to see her.” 

“ Mother is sick,” Margery replied; “she is very nerv- 
ous and cannot see any one. I am sorry, but you will 
have to wait. Maybe I can do as well,” she continued, 
looking wonderingly at Queenie, who, utterly disregard 
ing what she said, had started for the stairs. 

“No, you will not do as well. I must see her; it is 
very important and I cannot wait,” Queenie said, still 
advancing toward ,the stairs, while Margery put herself 
between them‘-,aiwi<^';her friend, whose strange conduct 
surprised her so much. 

“ But you cannot see her. I promised no one should 


iFITIf MAJiGEJ^Y, 


273 


distill b her,” she said again, and now she laid her hand 
on Queenie’s shoulder to detain her, for Queenie’s foot 
was on the first stair and she looked resolute enough to 
storm a fortress as she persisted in her determination to 
go up. 

But not less resolute than her own was the face which 
confronted her as Margery roused up and said in a voice 
Queenie had never heard from her before : “ Miss Hcth- 

erton ! You astonish me. I tell you mother is sick and 
cannot be distrubed. You must not go up.” 

‘‘ And I tell you I ?nusi. I have important news from 
Mentone, which concerns your mother and me, and I 
must see her.” 

“What news?” Margery asked, thinking suddenly of 
the letter her mother had received from Mentone the 
previous night, and experiencing a vague feeling of fear 
and dread of some impending evil. “ What news have 
you heard which concerns my mother?” she repeated, 
looking steadily at Reinette. 

Reinette hesitated a moment, kept silent by something 
in Margery’s face, but when she said for the third time, 
“ Tell me what news you have received from France,” 
she replied : “ Margery, it shall never make any differ- 
ence between us, but your mother is Christine Bodine, 
whom I have been trying to find.” 

“ My mother Christine Bodine ! Impossible ! She 
was Marie La Mille,” Margery gasped, as she clutched 
Reinette’s shoulder with a grip which was painful. 

“ I have it from her agent in Mentone, who has 
received money for her at different times from Messrs. 
Polignie in Paris — money my father deposited for her 
with them years ago Now let me go ! I must see her i” 
Queenie said, darting up the stairs, no longer restrained 
by Margery, who had let her pass without further pro- 
test. 

Clasping her hand to her head as if smitten with a 
blow, Margery staggered back, and leaning agains the 
12 * 


274 


REINETTES INTERVIEW 


wall for support, tried to think what it all meant, while 
her mind traveled rapidly back over the past, gathering 
up a thread here and there, until she had no doubt that 
what Queenie had told her was true. Her mother was 
Christine Bodine. But why this concealment ? What 
was she hiding ? What had she done ? 

Margery’s first impulse was to hurry to her me then’s 
room, where there was already the sound of excited 
voices, her mother’s and Queenie’s blended together, as 
each strove to be heard, and once she caught her own 
name, as if her mother were calling her to come. 

Then she did start, and was half way up the stairs, 
when the door-bell rang violently — a sharp, imperious 
ring, which she recognized as Anna Ferguson’s. She 
w^as expecting that young lady, and knowing that how- 
ever fierce a storm might be blowing, she must keep it 
from the world, she calmed herself with a tremendous 
effort, and opening thj door to Anna, listened patiently 
for several minutes, while the girl examined her sacque 
and said it would do very well, only the price was too 
high. 

“ Ma never asked anything like that for a common 
sacque.” 

“Very well. Pay me what you like,” Margery said, 
anxious to be rid of her customer, who had asked, in her 
supercilious way: 

“ Isn’t that Queenie up stairs ? And isn’t she talking 
pretty loud for a well-bred person ?” 

“Oh, will she never go ?” Margery thought, just as 
the bell pealed a second time, and Grandma Ferguson 
came in, bringing a bundle almost as large as herself, and 
entenng at once into full details of what she wished to 
have made, and how. 

“ I s’pose Anny is goin’ to be married,” she said, look- 
ing hard at her granddaughter, “ though she hain’t noticed 
me enough to tell me so, right out ; but everybody’s 
talkin’ it, and I thought I might as well have a new sUk 


W/Tff MAJ^GERY. 


275 


gown. My moiry a^itique is pretty well whipp'Cd o at, , nd 
a nice silk is alius handy. I got brown — a nice shadv 1 
call it,” and she unrolled a silk of excellent quality, b t 
of a yellowish brown, which would be very unbecomin ' 
to her. 

“ Oh, grandma, why didn’t you get black instead of 
that horrid snuff-color?” Anna said, contemptuously, as 
slie glanced at the silk, and then went out, leaving the 
old lady a good deal crestfallen, and a little doubtful 
with regard to the dress she had lately thought so pretty. 

Margery soothed her as well as she could, and heard 
her suggestions, and took her measure, and showed her 
some new fashion-plates, and did it all with her ears 
turned to her mother’s room where the talk was still 
going on, now low and earnest and almost pleading, and 
again so high and excited, that grandma asked if that 
was not Rejinef s voice and what she was talking so loud 
for. Then Margery excused herself for a moment and 
ran up stairs to her mother’s room, the door of which 
was ajar, and that accounted for the distinctness with 
which the sound of voices was borne to the parlor 
below. 

Mrs. La Rue had risen from her bed and put on a 
dressing-gown which Reinette was buttoning for her 
while she was trying to bind her long, loose hair into a 
knot behind. Her face was white as ashes, and in her 
eyes there was a hunted look, as of one pursued to the last 
extremity. But when she saw Margery, their expression 
suddenly changed, and thrusting out both hands, she 
cried : “ Oh, Margery, go away ; this is no place for 
you.” 

Advancing into the room and closing the door, Mar- 
gery said in a low, firm tone of voice: “ Miss Hetherton, 
I don’t know what all this is about, but mother is too 
weak and sick to be thus excited Will you leave her 
until a fitter time ? ” 

“Don’t call me Miss Hetherton, as if you were angry 


276 


RKINETTE'S IN TERVIEIV 


at me,''’ Reinette replied without ooking up from button 
ing Mrs. La Rue’s dressing-gown. “I cannot go now. 
Your mother knew my mother and is going to tell me 
about her. She is Christine Bodine.” 

“ Yes, -I am Christine. God pity me,” the miserable 
woman exclaimed, and over Margery’s face there sw^ept 
a look of unutterable pain and disappointment. 

She had said to herself that this which Reinette had 
told her was true ; that her mother was Christine, and 
still there had been a faint hope that there might be some 
mistake ; but there was none ; her mother had declared 
it herself, and with a low cry she turned away, saying as 
she did so : “ There are people in the parlor, and your 
voices are sometimes louder than you suppose, and 
though they cannot understand you, they will know you 
are excited and that there is trouble of some kind. Speak 
lower ; do. If this thing I hear be true we surely need 
not tell it to the world ; we can keep it to ourselves.” 

“Yes, Margery, that is what I mean to do,” Queenie 
said, while Mrs. La Rue exclaimed, with a ring ol joy in 
her voice as if some unexpected relief had come to her: 
‘‘Yes, yes, we need not tell ; we will not tell; we will 
keep the secret forever.” 

“But you must tell me all 3’'ou know about my 
mother,” Queenie said, while Margery went down 
stairs, ff>r tite bell was ringing again and Grandma Fer- 
guson was growing impatient of waiting to know if she 
should triixi her brown silk with velvet or fringe. 

This time it was Mrs. Rossiterand her daughters, and 
into Margery’s mind there flashed the thought, “Are all 
ti:e Fergusons coming here to-day, and what would they 

if they knew who my mother was ?” But they did 
nut know or dream of the exciting interview in the room 
above, where Reinette questioned so rapidly and impa- 
tiently the woman who almost crouched at her feet in 
her abasement and answered amid tears and sobs. 1 n«i 
Rossiters had merely come to ask when Miss La I 


IVim MARGERY. 


27? 


could dc some work for them, and they left v^ery sooi* 
taking grandma with them, to the great relief of Mar- 
gery, who locked the door upon them, determined tliaj 
no one else should enter until Reir.ette was ffone and 

O 

she knew herself why the truth had been withheld from 
her. 

Up stairs the talk was still going on, though the 
voices now were low and quiet as if the storm was over: 
but would the interview never end ? would Reinette never 
leave her free to go to her mother herself and demand an 
explanation ? Slowly, as it seemed, the hour hands crept 
on until it was twelve o’clock, and then at last a door 
opened and shut, and Queenie came down the stairs, her 
eyes red with weeping, but with a look of content upon 
her face which surprised Margery a little. 

“ She cannot be very angry with mother," she thought 
and her heart began to grow lighter as Queenie came up 
to her, and putting her arms around her neck, said to her: 

“ Margie, it makes you seem nearer to me, now that 1 
know your mother was my nurse, and I love you more 
than ever. But how white you are, and your hands are 
like lumps of ice. Are you sick ?" she continued, as she 
looked with alarm at Margery’s face, which was as white 
as ashes. 

“Not sick, but a good deal upset with what I have 
heard," Margery replied; “but tell me," she continued, 
“ what does mother say ? Why has she never told you 
who she was ? " 

“ She says it was for your sake ; that she feared lest 1 
might think less of you if I knew you were the daughter 
of my former nurse," Queenie replied, and looking 
earn.stly at her, Margery" asked: 

“And you believe this to be the only reason, don’t 
you ? " 

“No, I do not," Queenie answered, promptly. “ It is 
true in part, no doubt, but there is something she did not 
tell me, and which I am resolved to find out. Btit I dM 


278 


REINETTES INTERVIEW 


not tell her so, she seemed so scared — so like a frightened 
child. Margery, I believe your mother is more than half 
crazy.” 

‘‘ Yes, yes,” and Margery caught eagerly at the sugges* 
tion. “ You are right; she is crazy. ! can see it now,, 
and that will account for much which seems so strange. 
Oh, Queenie, be patient; be merciful. Remember, she is 
my mother.” 

“And my nurse,” Queenie rejoined. “She was with 
my mother when I was born and when she died. I shall 
not wrong her; do not fear me,” and Queenie’s lips 
touched Margery’s in token that through her no harm 
should come to the poor woman who, in the chamber 
above, sat in a low chair rocking to and fro, with a sick- 
ening dread of the moment when she must stand face to 
face with Margery and meet the glance of those clear, 
blue eyes which might read the story she had not told 
Reinette. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

REINETTE’s interview with CHRISTINE. 

EN Reinette went up the stairs to Mrs. La 
Rje’s room, she had no definite plan of 
action ; indeed, she had no plan all, ex- 
cept to confront and confound tne woman 
who had deceived her so long, and whom she found sit- 
ting up in bed with so terrified a look on her face, that 
she stood an instant on the threshold gazing at her ere 
she plunged impetuously into the business which had 
brought her there. Secure in Margery’s promise that no 
one should disturb her, Mrs. La Rue had grown com- 
paratively quiet, and was just falling off to slsep when 
she was reused by the sound of carriage wheels stopping 



WITH CHRISTINE, 


279 


at the gate, and a moment after she heard Reinette’s 
voi^e speaking earnestly to Margery, and felt that the 
hour she had dreaded so long had come at last. Reinette 
had heard from Mentone and had come for an explana- 
tion. 

“ Fool, that I did not end it all last night, when I had 
the nerve to do it,” she said, as, starting up in bed, she 
listened until footsteps came up the stairs, and Reinette 
Hetherton stood looking at her. 

But not long ; the girl was in too great haste to wait, 
and advancing to the bedside she began : “ Christine, 
you see I know you ; I have found you at last ; traced 
you through Messrs. Polignie to your agent in Men- 
'tone, whose clerk put me on your track ; so, there 
can be no mistake. You are Christine Bodine, my old 
nurse, whom I have so wished to find ; and you knew I 
wished it all the time, and did not tell me who you were. 
Why did you treat me so, Christine ? What is your ex- 
cuse ? You have one, of course.” 

She spoke so rapidly, pouring out question after 
question, that for a minute Mrs. La Rue was stunned 
and answered nothing, but sat staring blankly at her, 
like one in a dream. At last, however, her lips moved, 
and she said, faintly : “Yes, I am Christine, and I don’t 
know why I didn’t tell you.” 

“You don’t know why you didn’t tell me? That is 
veiy strange,” Reinette replied. “ If there is nothing to 
conceal, if all your dealings with my parents were 
honorable and upright, I see no reason for hiding from 
me the fact that you were once my nurse. Christine, I 
did not come to quarrel with you,” and Reinette’s voice 
softened a little. “ I have loved you too much for that, 
but I have come to hear about my mother. You were 
with her when she died. You nursed me when I was a 
baby You know what mother said to me find o' me. 
She loved you, Christine, and trusted you. I have it in 
a lettei written to my father before she died, when he 


RFfNETTES INTERVIEW 


s8o 

was away in Russia or Austria. And that is why he 
paid you money, was it not, Christine ?” 

She was looking fixedly at the woman on whose 
white face blood-red spots were beginning to show, and 
who answered falteringly : 

“ Yes, that is why he gave me the money. Oh, Rein- 
ette, leave me ; go away ; don’t try to unearth the pasu 
There are things you should not know — things I cannot 
tell. God help me. I wish I had died before I ever saw 
your face.” 

She looked so pale and death-like that Reinette bent 
anxiously over her, and bringing the camphor batlied 
her forehead, and held it to her nostrils until she was 
better, and raising herself from the pillows upon which 
she had fallen, she said : 

“ I cannot lie here. I feel that I am smothering. I 
must get up, while I talk to you, but oh, you’ll be so 
sorry. You’ll wish you had never come. Bring me iny 
wrapper there on the chair, and my woolen shawl, for I 
am shivering with cold.” 

Her teeth were chattering, and her lips were blue 
and pinched as Queenie brought the wrapper and helped 
her put it on, kneeling on the floor to button it herself, 
and occasionally speaking soothingly to her, though her 
own heart was beating rapidly with a dread of what she 
might bear. Then it was that Margery appeared on the 
scene, and by suggesting that no one but themselves 
need know what had so long been hidden, changed Mrs. 
La Rue’s intentions altogether. For a few brief moments 
there had been in her mind a resolve to make a clean 
breast of it, and to tell the truth, and then w*hen tiiat 
was done, she would kill herself, and so escape the storm 
sure to follow her revelations. 

“ Better die,” she thought^ ‘^than live to be questioned 
and suspected by the Rossiters, and Fergusons, and 
everybody, as I should be if they knew I was Cliristine.” 

But when the idea was suggested that only Margery 


IV/TJI CHRISTINE, 


381 


and Reinette need know, she changed her mind, and in 
what she would now tell the latter, there was to be a deep, 
dark gulf bridged over in silence. 

“Help me to my chair. I am very, very weak," she 
said to Reinette, when Margery had gone. 

Reinette complied with lier request, and leading her 
to a chair placed her gently in it, and drew tlie shawl 
closer around her. At this little act of attention Christine 
broke down entirely, and throwing her arms around 
Reinette, sobbed out: 

“ Oh, my darling, my baby whom I nursed. I have so 
longed to hold you in my arms as I held you years ago. 
Reinette, Reinette, kiss me — because — because — I am — 
Christine.” 

it was not in Reinette’s nature to resist such an 
appeal, and she kissed the poor trembling woman twice, 
and then drawing a chair to her side spoke very softly to 
her, and said: 

“ Now tell me.” 

“Tell you what, child? What do you wish most to 
know?” Christine asked, and Reinette replied: 

“About my mother. You are the first I have ever 
seen who knew her after she was Mrs. Hetherton. I have 
heard what she was v^hen a girl — the sweetest, loveliest 
creature, they say, with eyes like the summer sky, and a 
face so fair and pure, and I wish to hear from beginning 
to end all you know about her, and when you saw her 
first, and where, and about her death in Rome, when I 
was born, and only you there to care for either o^’ us.” 

“ W'ould you mind holding my hand while 1 tell you 
cf my first days with Mrs. Hetherton ?” Christine said, 
and Reinette took the cold, clammy hand between both 
of hers and rubbed and chafed it as tenderly as Mar- 
gery herself would have done. 

She was beginning to feel very kindly toward this 
woman who had known her mother ; the insinuations in 
Messrs. Polignie’s letter wxre forgotten for the time, and 


282 


REINETTE^S INTERVIEW 


she saw before her only one who had cared for her when 
an infant and had seen her mother die. 

“ Begin,” she said, “ I am impatient to hear.” 

And so Christine began, and told her of the adver- 
tisement for a waiting maid, which she had answered in 
person ; told her of the handsome rooms at the Hotel 
Meurice, and of the beautiful young lady wuo was so 
kind to her, and made her more a companion than a 
maid, notwithstanding that her proud husband frequently 
protested against it and talked of bad taste, which some- 
times made madame cry. 

“And did she tell you of Merrivale and her old 
home ? Did you know she was an American ?” Queenie 
asked, and Mrs. La Rue replied : 

“Yes, she told me all about her home and Merrivale, 
and I was familiar with every rock, and hill, and tree, I 
think, especially the elms upon the common, and the 
poplars near her home. She was so fond of Merrivale 
and her friends, and used often to cry for the mother so 
far away.” 

“ Was she very homesick ?” Reinette asked, and Mrs. 
La Rue answered her : 

“At times, yes, when monsieur was away with his as- 
sociates, or staid out so late nights, as he sometimes did. 

Reinette’s breath came quickly for a moment, and her 
voice shook as she asked, very low, as if afraid some one 
might hear : 

“ Was not father kind to her always ?” 

“ If beautiful dresses and jewelry, and horses and car- 
riages, and plenty of money means kindness, then he was 
kind, for she had all these in profusion, but what she 
wanted most she did not have, and that was her husband’s 
society,” Mrs. La Rue said, and then Reinette drew back 
a little haughtily and answered : 

“ Christine, you did not like my father. I see that ii^ 
all you say, but he was very dear to me, and I loved him 
so much ! You were prejudiced against him, but I ins;? 


l^F/TIf CHRISTINE. 


283 


upon your going on just the same and telling me every- 
thing. Why did she not have his society ? Where and 
how did he pass his time, if not with her? He loved 
her, I am sure. You know he did. You know he loved 
my mother.*’ 

She kept asserting this, for there was an expression 
on Mrs. *.>a Rue’s face which she could not understand 
and which did not quite please her. 

“ He was very proud of her beauty, and in his way- 
fond of her, but I do not think it was in Monsieur Heth- 
erton’s nature to love any one long. Her habits did not 
suit him ; his did not suit her ; she breakfasted at nine ; 
he breakfasted at eleven in his room, and frequently 
dined out, returning generally to see her dressed for tlie 
opera or concert, and dictating about her toilet until we 
were both at our wits’ end. Her tastes were too simple 
for him. He wished her to wear velvet and satin, and 
diamonds and pearls, while she would have liked plain 
muslin gowns and a quiet home in the country, with 
hens, and chickens, and pets. She was very happy at 
Chateau des Fleurs, and would have been happier if mon- 
sieur had staid more with her, but he was much in Paris, 
and Switzerland, and Nice, and so we were alone a great 
deal, and she taught me many things and was very kind 
to me.” 

“ But why did not my father stay with her more ?” 
Reinette asked, and Mrs. La Rue replied : ‘‘ He was fond 
of travel, and hunting, and racing, and had many gentle- 
men friends there, whose influence was not good, and he 
complained that Chateau des Fleurs was lonely. If he 
only had a child — a son — he could bear it, he said ; but 
as It was, the place was unendurable, and so he staid 
away weeks at a time, while your mother pined ana 
drooped like some fair lily which had neither water noi 
sunshine.” 

“Oh, this is very dreadful,” Queenie said, with a 
choking sob. “ I am glad grandma will never know 


384 


REINETTSS INTERVIEW 


what you have told me. But go on and tell me the rest. 
I insist upon knowing the whole.” 

So Mrs. La Rue told of the weeks and weeks which 
her mistress passed alone at Chateau des Fleurs, while 
Mr. Hetherton was seeking his pleasure elsewhere ; of 
his great desire for a son to bear his name ; of Mrs 
rietherton’s failing health and removal at last to South* 
ern France, and then, as the season advanced, to Rome • 
of the great joy which came to her so unexpectedly ana 
which she purposely kept from her husband, wishing to 
surprise him when he joined her in Rome, as he promised 
to do ; of the weary weeks of waiting, hoping against 
hope, for he was always coming in a few days at the 
most and never came ; and then of a girl baby’s birth 
sooner than it was expected, and the scene which fol- 
lowed, when the young wife died, with her little girl 
clasped to her bosom and her own head pillowed on 
Christine’s arm. 

Here Christine stopped suddenly and covering her 
face with her hands sobbed hysterically as she recalled 
that scene, while Reinette, too, cried as she had never 
cried before for the dying mother in Rome, who had 
held her babe to the very last and prayed that God 
would bless it and have it in his keeping and make it a 
comfort and a joy to the husband and father, who was 
far away, joining in a midnight revel where wine, and 
cards, and women, such as Margaret Ferguson never 
knew, formed a conspicuous part. 

Her baby was a great comfort to her,” Mrs. La Rue 
said, when she could speak, ‘‘and she would have it 
where she could feel its little hands upon her face, even 
after blindness came upon her, and she could no longer 
see. The English physician had been in, and told me 
she probably would not last the night through, and that 
I must have some one with me. Hut she said, ‘No; 
Christine and baby are all 1 want,’ and when he was 
gone she made me sit by her, while she talked, as she 


IV/Tff CHRISTINE. 


28s 


had done many a time, of her home over tie sea, of her 
sister, and her mother, to whom she sent messages. I 
remember her very words. ‘ Tell them,' she said, ‘that I 
have never ceased to love them, and to long for tnem 
with such longing as only homesick creatures know, and 
if I have seemed neglectful, and have not written as 1 
ought it was because — I couldn’t. I can’t explain, only 
I love them so much ; and now if I could lay my head 
on mcjther’s lap, as I did when I was a little girl, and it 
ached as it is aching now, I should die more willingly. 
Dear old mother ! poor old father’ with his hard, brown 
hands, which have worked so hard for rnc — God bless 
them, and comfort them, when they hear I am dead ! ’ ” 

“ Oh, Christine ! ” Reinette sobbed, “grandma ought 
to know this — she and Aunt Mary, too. They have never 
heard one word of her last days, for father only wrote 
that she was dead, and did not even tell them of my birth. 
I ought to tell my grandmother ; she will be so glad to 
know.” 

“ No, no! oh, no ! better not. You said you would not!” 
Christine exclaimed in terror. “ It would lead to so 
much talk — so many questions about your father, and — 
Reinette, forgive me — but his record was not the fairest 
Even you, his daughter, would not like to see its blackest 
pages.” 

Reinette’s face was crimson with shame and resent- 
ment, and in her eye was that peculiar gleam which so 
bewildered and confounded those on whom it fell. The 
fair structure she had built about her father’s memor}' 
was tottering to atoms, but she would struggle bravely 
to keep it together as long as possible, and she replied : 

“ If there were pages so black in father’s life, do not 
show them to me, lest I should say you told me falsely. 
He was my father, and I loved him so dearly. He was 
kind to me always — and I will stand by him forever. 
But you have not finished. I want to know jus* ho^v 
mother died.” 


RETNETTES INTERVIEW 


2SC 

So Christine went on and told of the long hours \\ hen 
the dying woman lay with her baby clasped to her bosom, 
and her head pillowed on the strong arm of her maid, 
who held her thus until the darkness was passed and the 
early dawn of the mild spring morning began tc creep 
into the room, when Margaret roused a little, and :>aid : 

“ It is almost over, Christine. I am going home to 
Jesus, whose arms are around me so that I am not afraid. 
Tell them at home I was so happy, and death had no 
terror for me. Tell them I seem to hear the children 
singing as they used to sing in the old church in Merri- 
vale, and the summer wind blows in and out, and brings 
the perfume of the pond lilies with it, and the river flows 
on and on amid the green meadows — away — away — ^just 
as I am floating so quietly out upon the sea of eternity, 
where the lilies are fairer and sweeter than those which 
lift their white heads to the sunshine in the ponds of 
Merrivale. And now, Christine, place my baby so 1 can 
kiss her once more, for sight and strength have failed 
me.” 

The child’s face was lifted to the pale lips which 
kissed it tenderly, and then, just as the warm Italian sun- 
shine lighted up the distant dome of St. Peter’s with a 
blaze of gold, and all over the great city, and far out upon 
the Campagna the morning was warm and bright, the 
young mother lay dead in the silent room, with only her 
servant and baby with her. 

There was a fresh burst of tears and sobs from Reinettc 
as she Ls ened to the story, and when it was ended she 
threw her arms around her nurse’s neck and nearly 
strangled her with kisses, as she sf»id : 

“I can forgive you everything now that I know how 
good and true you were to my mother.” 

With something like a moan Christine freed herself 
from the girl, and went rapidly on : 

I did not know just where your father was, for he 
Ovas never long in the same place, and as we could not 


fVITIf CHRISTINE, 


287 


wait to hear from him, and I did not know what to do, 
strangers took the matter in hand and buried her in the 
Protestant grave-yard at Rome, where you father has 
never been since.” 

“ And I ?” lU^inette said. “ You took me to him V 

‘‘Yes, I took you to Chateau des Fleurs, Christine 
replied, while her face grew scarlet and then turned ashen 
pale, and Queenie never dreamed of the chasm which she 
leaped in silence, or of the bitter remorse which brought 
those livid spots to the face of Christine, who did not 
look at her now, but shut her eyes and leaned wearily 
back in her chair. 

“ I am so weak, and talking all this tires me so,” she 
said ; but Reinette was not sati'>iied, and her next ques- 
tion was : 

“What did father say whe'» he first saw me?” 

“ Christine did not reply to this, but sat with her 
hands locked together, and a look upon her face as if she 
was living over some painful scene. 

“Tell me; how did he act? What did he say?” 
Reinette repeated, and then, with a smile full of irony 
and bitterness Christine answered : 

“ He swore because you were not a boy !” 

“ Oh-h ! this is terrible,” Reinette exclaimed, as her 
face grew very red. 

But she was too proud to let her nurse see how she 
was pained, and she continued : 

“ Yes, 1 can understand how a man like him would be 
disappointed if he wanted a son very much ; but he loved 
me afterward. I am sure of that. How long did you 
stay wfith me at Chateau des Fleurs, and why did you 
^eave ? Was it M. La Rue ?” 

“Yes, I was married to Monsieur La Rue and had to 
leave, but I saw you sometimes when you were a little 
child, playing in the grounds of the Chateau.” 

“ I remember it — a \voman came one day when I was 


288 


REINE TTES INTER VIE W, 


with my nurse and kissed and cried over me, and g«ave 
me some bon-bons ; and that was you,” Reinette said 
and Mrs. La Rue assented, while Reinette continued • 

“And you lived all the time in Paris, and never let 
me know or brought Margei y to see me; and, oh, Christine 
when 1 found her up in that room that day and she told 
you of me, did you know then who I was ?” 

“Yes, I knew,” was the reply, and Reinette went on: 

“ You knew, and never tried to see me ? That is very 
strange. And did father know, when Margery was at 
school with me, and afterward at the chateau ? Did he 
know she was your daughter?” “No, it would have 
made him very angry,” Christine replied, “and lest he 
should find it out I took her to Southern France and tried 
to cut off all intercourse between you. Her letters to you 
I did not post and yours to her I withheld. You remember 
you did not hear from her for months.” “ Yes, I remember,” 
Reinette replied. “We talked about it and wondered 
where the letters went, but we never suspected you, and 
1 must say I think it was a very mean thing for you to do. 
Father would not have been angry. Why should he, Chris- 
tine?” and Reinette grew more earnest in her manner. 
“You may as well tell me the truth, for I am resolved to 
wring it from you, and I will not tell Margery either. 
You had done something to displease my father; now, 
what was it ? I insist upon knowing.” 

“Nothing, nothing,” Christine gasped. “He was 
very proud, and I knew he would not like you to be too 
Intimate with people like us ; that is all — everything.” 

“ And was that the reason why after he was dead and 
you met me here you kept silent? Were you afraid I, 
too, was proud, and would think less of Margery, if 1 
knew.” 

“Yes, yes; you have guessed it,” Mrs. La Rue said, 
quickly, as if relieved that Re'nette had put so good a 
reason into her mind. 


MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. ^89 


She was very tired, and had borne so much that it 
seemed to her she could bear no more, and clasping her 
hands to her head, she said, imploringly: 

“ Leave me now, please; there is nothing more to tell, 
and I am so tired and sick, and — and — there is Margery 
yet to see. Oh, Miss Hetherton, make it easy as you 
can to Margery. Don’t let her think ill of me. I could 
not bear that. I would rather have the bad opinion of the 
whole world than hers. She is so good, so true, and hates 
deception so much. Go now, and leave me to myself. 
1 believe — I think — yes, I am sure I am going mad.” 

Reinette looked at her in surprise. 

“ There is something else,” she thought, “ something 
behind, which she has not told, and I mean to know what 
it is ; but I will leave her now,” and taking Christine’s hot 
hands in hers she said, very kindly, “ Good-by, Chris- 
tine ; I am going, but another time you will tell me more 
of my mother.” 

Then pressing her hand to her lips she ran down the 
stairs to Margery, who was waiting anxiously for her, 
and who for the first time in her life was glad when 
Reinette said good-by and left her alone to seek her 

mother. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. 

R a full quarter of an hour after Reinette’s 
departure Margery sat motionless, with her 
head bent down, thinking of all the incidents 
of her past life as connected with her mother, 
and recalling here and there certain acts which, viewed 
in the new light shed upon them, seemed both plain and 



14 


*90 MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. 


mysterious. Buzzing through Margery’s brain, and al- 
mosu driving her mad, was the same suspicion which had 
at times so disturbed Reinette, but, like Reinette, she 
fought it down. But not for the dead man whose costly 
monument was gleaming cold and white in the grave- 
yard of Merrivale. He was nothing to her, save as the 
father of her friend, who, for his daughter’s sake, had 
been kind to her so far as money was concerned. But it 
was for the woman up-stairs, her mother, that her heart 
was aching so, and the hot blood pouring so swiftly 
through her veins. To lose faith in her whom she had 
believed so good, and who had taught her always that 
truth and purity were more to be prized than all the 
wealth in the world, would be terrible. And yet that 
mother’s life had for years been one of concealment, for 
which she could see no excuse. That given to Queenie 
was not the true reason. There was something else, 
‘‘and I must know what it is,” she thought, “even if it 
kills me.” 

Starting to her feet at last, and foi getting how weak 
and sick her mother was, she went half-way up the stairs 
and called : 

“ Mother, will you come down, or shall I come up ?” 

The voice was not the same which Mrs. La Rue knew 
p-s Margery’s. There was a hardness and sternness in it 
which boded no good to her, and a mortal terror took 
possession of her as she thought : 

“ My hour has come. She will wring it from me 
Weil, no matter. It will be better for her, perhaps.” 

“ Say, mother, will you come down, or shall I come 
up ?” came again from Margery, and this time Mrs. La 
Rue replied : 

“ Oh, Margery, Margery ! not yet — not yet ! Spare 
me a little longer. I have been so tried and worried, i 
am not quite right in my head ; wait awhile before you 
come, dear Margery.” 

There was a world of pathos in those two words — 


Margery and her mother. 


291 


‘‘dear Margery” — pathos and pleading both, as if the 
mother were asking mercy from her child. And Margery 
recognized the meaning, but her heart did not soften or 
relent. Indeed, she could not understand herself, or 
define the strange feeling which had taken possession of 
her and was urging her on to know what it was her 
mother had hidden so long and so successfully. 

But she did not then go up ; she waited awhile, and 
going to the kitchen, prepared a tempting dinner, which 
she arranged upon a tray, and then took to the room, 
where Mrs. La Rue still sat just as Reinette had left her, 
her face as white as marble, her eyes blood-shot and dim, 
and her whole attitude that of a guilty culprit awaiting 
its punishment. 

And she was awaiting hers, and when the first blow 
came in the person of Margery bringing her the nicely- 
prepared dinner, she seemed to shrivel up in her chair, 
and her head dropped upon her breast. But she did not 
speak, and when Margery drew a little table to her side, 
and placing the tray upon it, poured out her tea and held 
it to her lips, she swallowed it mechanically, as she did 
the food pressed upon her. At last, however, she could 
take no more, and putting up her hand, she made a ges- 
ture of dissent, and whispered faintly : 

“Enough!” 

How sick and old, and crushed she looked ! But for 
this Margery would not spare her ; and when, after tak- 
ing the dinner away, she returned to her mother, and sat 
down where Queenie had sat, she said : 

“ Now, tell me.” 

“Tell you what ?” Mrs. La Rue asked, and Margery 
replied * 

“ Tell me the whole truth, every word of it, as you did 
not tell it to Queenie.” 

“ What did I tell her?” Mrs. La Rue said, in a bewil- 
dered kind of way, as if the events of the last few hours 
were really a blank to her. 


292 MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. 


You told her you were Christine Bodine, her formei 
nurse/’ Margery began, and her mother interrupted her 
with : 

And I am, Margery ; that was the truth. I was Chris- 
tine Marie La Mille Bodine ; but I dropped the first 
name and the last, and for years was only Marie La 
Mille.” 

“ Yes, I know,” Margery returned. “ You deceived 
me with regard to your name, and yc^ kept your identity 
a secret from Reinette when you knew how much she 
wished to find you, and you gave her as a reason that you 
feared lest she would think less of me if she knew I was 
the child of one who had once served her mother.” 

“Yes, that’s it — that’s it, Margie!” Mrs. La Rue 
gasped, as she clutched the skirt of Margery’s gown and 
rubbed it caressingly. 

“ Mother,” Margery said, and her voice was low and 
stern, “ that excuse might do for Queenie, but not for 
me, who know all our past life. There is something you 
are keeping from me, and which I must know What is 
it ? Why were you afraid to let Queenie know who you 
were ?” 

“ There is nothing — nothing — believe me, Margie, 
nothing,” Mrs. La Rue said, still caressing the gown, as 
if she would thus appease her daughter, who continued : 

“Yes, there is something ; there has been a something 
always since I can remember. I see it now — your fits of 
abstraction, your moods of melancholy, amounting 
almost to insanity, and which have increased in frequency 
since we came to America and met Reinette. The money 
you received at stated times was from her father, wa^ it 
not 

“ Ye-es,” came in a whisper from Mrs. La Rue’s white 
lips, and Margery went on : 

“ You must then have always known his whereabouts 
When wc lived in Paris, and father v^as alive ycu knew 


MARGERY AND HER MOTHER, 


293 


that Mr. Hethertoi» was there in the city, too; and did 
you ever see him ?’* 

“ Never — never ' He would have spurned me like a 
dog,” Mrs. La Rue answered, energetically, and Margery 
continued : 

“ But you knew he was there, and when Queenie came 
to me that day when I wore her scarlet cloak and she 
my faded plaid, you knew who she was, and did not 
speak ? ” 

“Yes, I knew who she was, and did not speak,” 
moaned Mrs. La Rue, and Margery went on : 

“ And when I was at school with her, and her father 
paid the bills, and when I visited her at the chateau, you 
knew, and did not tell me. But did you tell my father? 
Did he know who Queenie was ? — know of Mr. Hether- 
ton r 

“ No, he did not,” Mrs. La Rue replied, “nor was it 
necessary. I was a faithful wife to him, and there was 
no need for him to know.” 

“ Mother,” Margery began, after a moment’s pause, 
“ why did you wish to hide from Queenie who you were ? 
I have a right to know. I am your daughter, and if there 
has been any wrong I can share it with you. I would 
rather know the exact truth than think the horrible 
things I may think, if you do not tell me. Why did you 
take another name than your own, and why did you not 
reveal your self to Queenie, but leave her to grope in 
the dark for what she so much wished to find ? Tell me. 
I insist upon knowing.” 

Driven to the last extremity, and forgetting herself 
In her distress, Mrs. La Rue replied : 

“I had sworn not to do it; had taken a solemn vow 
never to let Queenie kn^w who I was ” 

“ Had made a vow ? Had sworn not to do it ? Who 
made you swear ? Who required that vow from you ’ 
Was it Mr. Hetherton?” Margery asked, and her mother 
replied : 


294 MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. 


“Yes, Mr. Hetherton ; curse him in his grave! He 
has been my ruin. I was so happy and innocent until I 
knew him. He wrung the vow from me : he paid me 
money to keep it ; he 

She stopped here, appalled by the look on Margery’s 
face — a look which made her cower and tremble as she 
};ad never trembled and cowered before. 

Wrenching her dress away from the hands which 
still held it, and drawing herself back, Margery 
demanded : 

“Tell me what you mean? You have said strange 
things to me, mother. You have talked of ruin, and 
innocence, and money paid for silence, and as your 
daughter I have a right to know what you mean. And 
you must tell me, too, before I look on Queenie’s face 
again. What is it, mother ? What was the secret between 
you and Mr. Hetherton? What have you done, which 
you would hide from me ? Speak, and I will forgive 
you, even if it brings disgrace to me. If you do not tell, 
and suffer me to live on with these horrid suspicions 
torturing me to madness, I can never touch your hand 
again in love, or think of you as I have done.” 

She had risen from her chair, and stood with folded 
arms looking down upon the wretched woman, who 
moaned : 

“Do not, Margie, do not drive me to tell, for the tell- 
ing will involve so much — so much! Some will be dis- 
graced and others benefited ; do not make me tell, please 
do not.” 

She stretched her arms toward Margery, who stood 
immovable as a rock, and said, with a hard ring in her 
Vv'uce : 

“ Disgrace to me, I suppose. Well, I can bear that 
better than suspense and uncertainty.” 

“No, Margie, not disgrace to you, thr.nk Heaven! 
not disgrace to you in the way you think,” Mrr, La Rue 
cried. 


MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. 


m 

A ad with this horrid fear lifted from her mind, Mar- 
gery came nearer to her mother, and said : 

* “ If there is no disgrace for me, then tell me at once 

what it is. I shall never leave this room till I know.''' 

“Then listen.” 

And raising herself erect in her chair, while the blood 
came surging back to her face, and her eyes flashed with 
the fire of a maniac, Mrs. La Rue continued : 

“ Listen ; but sit down first. The story is long, and 
you will need all your strength before it is through 
Sit down,” and she pointed to a chair, into which Mar- 
gery sank mechanically, while a strange, prickling sen- 
sation ran through her frame, and she felt a sickening 
dread of what she was to hear. 

“ I am ready,” she said ; but her voice was the fainter 
now of the tw'o, for her mother’s was calm and steady as 
she commenced the story, which she told in all its de- 
tails, beginning at the day when she first saw Mr. Heth- 
erton’s advertisement for a waiting-maid for his wife. 

For a time the story was pleasant enough to listen 
to, for Mrs. La Rue dwelt at length upon the goodness 
and sweetness of her mistress, who trusted her so im- 
plicitly ; but at last there came a change, and Margery’s 
eyes grew dark with horror and pain, and her cheek 
paled, as she listened to a tale which curdled the blood 
in her veins and seemed turning her into stone. 

Without the sleety rain was beating in gusts against 
the windovs, and the wind, which had risen since noon, 
roared down the chimney and shook every loosened 
blind and casement, but was unheard by the young girl, 
who, with a face like the faces of the dead and hands 
locked so tightly together that the blood came through 
the flesh where the nails were pressing, sat immovable, 
listening to the story told her by the woman, whose eyes 
were closed as she talked, and whose words flowed on so 
rapidly as if to utter them were a relief and eased the 
terrible remorse which had gnawed at her heart so long. 


MARGEI^rS ILLNESS, 


196 


Had she looked at the girl before her she might 
paused, for there was something awful in the expression 
of Margery’s face as she listened, until the story was* 
ended, when, with a cry like one in mortal pain, she 
threw up both her hands and fell heavily to the floor, 
while purple spots came out upon her face, and the 
white froth, flecked with blood, oozed from her livid 
lips. 

Margery knew the secret of Christine Bodine ! 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Margery’s illness. 

HEN Reinette left the cottage that morning she 
drove to the office of Mr. Beresford, to whom 
she communicated the result of her interview 
with Mrs. La Rue, telling him the reason 
given by the woman for her silence, and professing to 
believe it. 

“ It was very foolish in her, of course,” she said, “ for, 
if possible, I love Margery the better now that I know 
who her mother is, but there is no accounting for the 
fancies of some people. Christine seems very much 
broken, and does not wish to be questioned, as she would 
be by grandma and Aunt Mary if they knew what we do, 
so we must keep our own counsel. I can r»*ust you, Mr. 
Beresford.” 

The lawyer bowed and looked searchingly at her to 
sec if no other thought had been suggested to her by her 
interview with Christine. But if there had she gave no 
sign of it, and her face was very bright and cheerful as 
she said good-by and was driven home, where she sa: 



MARGERY'S ILLNESS. 


297 


eowK to write to Phil, wno had left Rome and was 
journeying on toward India, where she was to direct her 
letter. 

It was four o’clock by the time the ^'^ng letter was 
finished, and as the rain by this time had ceased, and 
there was a prospect of fair weather, Reinette determined 
to take the letter to the office herself and then call upon 
her grandmother, and possibly upon Mrs. La Rue. 

Christine’s pale face had haunted her all the afternoon, 
and she longed to see her again and assure her of her 
faith in and love for her. 

Depositing her letter in the office, and bowing to Mr. 
Beresford, who happened to be passing in the street, she 
drove next to her grandmother’s, but was told by the girl 
that Mrs. Ferguson had gone to see Miss La Rue more 
than an hour ago, and had not yet returned. 

“Very well, I v/ill go there, too,’’ Reinette said, and 
her carriage was soon drawing up before the cottage 
where the doctor’s gig was standing. 

“Dr. Nichols here? Mrs. La Rue must be worse. I 
am glad I came,’’ Reinette thought, as she went rapidly 
up the walk and entered unannounced. 

“ How is Mrs. La Rue, and where is Margery? ” she 
asked of a woman whom she met in the hall, and whom 
she recognized as a neighbor. 

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? Marger} 
has had an apoplectic fit, and is dying,” was the woman’s 
reply, and with a shriek of terror and surprise Reinette 
fled past her up the stairs to Margery’s room, where she 
paused a moment on the threshold to take in the scene 
which met her astonished view 

By the window, which was raised to admit the air, the 
doctor stood, with a grave, troubled look, while near him 
sat Mrs. i^a Rue, with a face which might have been cut 
from stone, so rigid and immovable was every feature, 
while her eyes, deep-set in her head, with dark circles 
around them, seemed like coals of fire as they turned i pon 


13' 


2q8 


MARGERY'S ILLN S:SS. 


Reinette, who shuddered with fear at their awful expres- 
sion. At sight of her the woman’s lips moved, bi.tmade 
no sound — only her fingers pointed to the bed where 
Margery lay breathing heavily, but with no other sign to 
show that she was living. looked like one dying, 

and had looked th.us since the moment she fell to the 
floor at the end of her mother’s story. 

For a few moments Mrs. La Rue had been as helpless 
and almost as insensible as her daughter ; then, rousing 
herself with a great effort, she knelt beside the uncon- 
scious girl, and lifting her head covered the white face 
with kisses and tears, and called upon her by every ten- 
der epithet to open her eyes and speak, if only to curse 
the one who had wrought so much harm. But Margery’s 
ears were deaf alike to words of love or pleading, and 
she lay so still, and looked so awful, with that bloody 
froth about her lips, that, at last, in wild affright, her 
mother called for help, and the woman who lived next 
door, was startled by a succession of cries, each louder 
than the preceding, and which came apparently from Mrs. 
La Rue’s cottage. Entering at a rear door, and following 
the direction of the sounds, she came to the chamber 
where Margery still lay upon the floor, with her mother 
bending over her and shrieking for aid. To lift Margery 
up and carry her to bed, and send for a physician, was 
the woman’s first work, and then she tried what she could 
do to restore the insensible girl, who only moaned faintly 
in token that she knew what was passing around her. 
When questioned by the physician, who was greatly puz- 
zled by the case, Mrs. La. Rue said that Margery had not 
seemed well for some time — had overworked, she thought, 
and that she had fallen suddenly from her chair while 
talking to her after dinner. This was all the explanation 
she would give, and, more perplexed than he had ever 
been in his life, the physician bent his energies to lielo 
the young girl who, it seemed, even to him, was dying 


MARGERTS ILLNESS. 


299 


foi the most powerful restoratives and stimulants tailed 
to produce any effect, or to move so much as an eyelid 

It was just then that Grandma Ferguson came in 
She had remembered some directions with regard to the 
brown silk, which she had failed to give in the morning, 
and had come again to see about it. Finding no one 
below, and hearing the sound of voices above, she called 
at the foot of the stairs : 

“ Mrs. La Rue ! Mrs. La Rue ! Where be you a. 1 ?” 

“Hush ! Margery is very sick,” the neighbor, whose 
name was Mrs. Whiting, answered, going to the head of 
the stairs, and putting her finger to her lips. 

At the sound of Mrs. Ferguson’s voice a tremor seem- 
ed to creep all over Margery, whose head moved a little 
and whose eyes partly unclosed as the old lady entered 
the room, and, in great concern, asked what was the 
matter. 

“I mistrusted something ailed her this mornin’,” she 
said, “for she did not appear nateral at all, and her 
hands was just like ice. Have you tried a mustard 
paste the whole length of her backbone? My Margaret 
sometimes had such faintin’ spells, and that always 
brought her to.” 

Grandma was standing at the foot of the bed as she 
talked, and when she mentioned her daughter Margaret, 
Margery’s eyes unclosed again, and her lips moved as if 
she would speak. Then she was quiet, and did not stir 
again until Reinette came in, and at sight of her sprang 
forward exclaiming : 

“Oh! what is it? what is it? Margery, Margery ! 
What has happened to her ?” 

At the sound of her voice the same tremor which had 
run through Margery’s frame when Grandma Ferguson 
came in, returned, and this^lime with greater intensity. 
There was a faint, moaning cry, vrhich sounded like 
“Queenie, oh, Queepie ! ” and, stepping forward, the 
physician said : 


300 MARGER \ 'S ILLNESS. 

“ Speak to her again, Miss Hetherton. She seems to 
know you, and we must rouse her, or she will die.” 

Thus importuned, Reinette knelt beside her friend, 
covering her face and hand with kisses, and saying to 
her, softly : 

“Dear Margery, do you know me? I am Queenie 
Speak to me, if you can, and tell me what is the matter . 
What made you sick so suddenly ?” 

“ No, no ! oh, no ! Go away ! I cannot bear it . 
You hurt !” Margery said, as she tried to disengage her 
hand from Reinette. And those were the only words 
she spoke for several days, during which she lay per- 
fectly still, never moving hand or foot, but apparently 
conscious most of the time of what was passing around 
her, and always seeming happier when Grandma Fer- 
guson was with her, and agitated when Reinette came in 
with her caresses and words of sympathy and love. 

It was a most singular case, and greatly puzzled the 
physician, who said once to Reinette : 

“ It seems like some mental shock more than a bodily 
ailment. Do you know if anything has happened to dis- 
turb her, which, added to over-fatigue, might produce 
this utter and sudden prostration ?” 

Queenie hesitated a moment, and then replied : 

“ She did hear something which surprised her greatly, 
but I should hardly think it sufficient to affect her so 
much.” 

“ Temperaments differ,” the doctor replied, while 
Queenie thought to herself : 

“ Can it be possible that Margery takes it so to heart, 
and does she fear that it will make any difference in my 
love for her ? It shall not, and I will prove it to her.” 

After this Queenie took up her abode, for the time 
being, at the cottage, of wldch she was really the head, 
for Mrs. La Rue did nothing ^but sit by Margery ind 
watch her with a pertinacity ano earnestness which an 
noyed the sick girl, when she came to realize what was 


MARGERY* S ILLNESS, 


301 


passing around her, and made her try to escape the 
steady gaze of those strange eyes always watching her. 

“ Do not look at me,” she said at last one day. 
** Move back, please, where I cannot see you.” 

Without a word Mrs. La Rue moved back into the 
shadow, but did not leave the room, except at intervals 
to eat and sleep, and thus the whole charge of the cot- 
tage fell upon Reinette, who developed a wonderful 
talent for housekeeping, and saw to everything. Much 
of her time, however, was passed with Margery, on whom 
sh^ lavished so much love that her caresses seemed at 
times to worry the sick girl, who would moan a little 
and shrink away from her. 

“ What is it, Margie, darling ? Do I tire you V* 
Reinette asked her, one day, when they were alone for a 
few moments, and Margery had seemed uneasy and rest- 
less. 

For a moment Margery did not answer, but lay with 
her eyes shut while the great tears rolled down her 
cheeks ; then, suddenly raising herself in bed, she threw 
her arms around Reinette’s neck and sobbed : 

“Oh, Queenie, Queenie, you do not know, I cannot 
tell you how much I love you, more than I ever did be- 
fore, and yet I am so sorry ; but you will love me al- 
ways, whatever happens, won’t you ?” 

“ Why, yes, Margery. What can happen, and why 
shouldn’t I love you?” Queenie asked, as she held the 
beautiful golden head against her bosom, and kissed the 
quivering lips. “ Margery,” she continued, “ do you feel 
so badly because of your mother’s silence ! She has ex- 
plained it to me, and I am satisfied. Don’t let that trou- 
ble you anymore. No others beside oui^'elves need 
know who she is, and thus all talk and comment will be 
spared.” 

“ I know, I know,” Margery replied, “ but, Queenie, 
you told me you believed there was something else— 


302 


MARGERTS ILLNESS. 


some other reason, and you meant to write to France; 
do you mean it still ? Will you try to find it out ?” 

“Yes, I think so," Queenie answered, “just for my 
own curiosity. I shall make no bad use of it. I shall 
not harm you." 

“No, no; you must not seek tc know," Margery ex- 
claimed, with energy. “ There was something, Queenie. 
I have wrung it from her. She did right to keep silent. 
She ought not to have spoken. And Queenie, if you 
love me, promise me you will never try to find it out-- 
never write to any one in France. Promise, or I shall 
certainly die." 

She had disengaged herself from Queenie’s embrace, 
but was sitting upright in bed, with a look upon her face 
like one who is really losing her senses. It startled 
Reinette, who answered unhesitatingly : 

“ I promise. I will not write to any one in France, 
but may be you will tell me some time. Will you. Mar- 
gery ?” 

“Never — never, so help me Heaven!" was the em- 
phatic reply, as Margery fell back among her pillows 
wholly exhausted. 

For a moment Reinette stood looking curiously at 
her ; then seating herself upon the side of the bed, and 
taking Margery’s hand, she said : 

“You make me half repent my promise made with- 
out stopping to consider, for my curiosity is very great. 
But I shall keep it, do not fear ; only tell me this — was 
it anything very dreadful which your mother did?" 

“Yes," Margery replied, “it was very dreadful — it 
would make you hate her and me, too, if you knew. 
“Don’t talk to me or any one about it. Don’t mention 
it again." 

“ But tell me one thing more," Queenie persisted ; “ I 
have a right to know. Was my father involved in it." 

She held her breath for the answer, and looked 
earnestly at Margery, whose eyes grew larger arm 


MARGERTS ILLNESS. 


3^>3 

brighter, and whose face was sc*arlet as she answered at 
last : 

“ At first he was, but for the last, the thing for which 
I blame mother most, he was net to blame.'* 

“Thank God for that," Queenie exclaimed joyfully, 
while her tears fell in torrents. “Oli, Margery, you 
don’t know what a load you have taken from me — a load 
I did not mean any one should ever suspect, because — 
because — Margery, I don’t mind telling you — I’ve had 
some dreadful tlioughts about Christine. Forgive me, 
Margery, do,” she continued, as she saw a strange look 
leap into her friend’s eyes, a look which she construed 
into one of resentment toward her for having harbor- 
ed a suspicion of her mother, but which arose from a 
widely different reason, and was born of bitter shame and 
a great pity for herself. 

“ I’ve nothing to forgive, at least in you,” Margery 
said, as she covered Queenie’s liands with kisses and 
tears, which fell so fast and so long that Queenie became 
alarmed, and tried to comfort and quiet her. 

“ Don’t, Margie, don’t,” she said ; “ it distresses me to 
see you so disturbed. If father was not to blame I do 
not care for the rest, but I could not bear to lose faith 
in him whom I have loved and honored so much.” 

“You never shall, darling ; never, never,” Margery 
exclaimed, and Reiiiette little dreamed how much the 
girl was thrusting from her, or how terrible was the 
temptation which for one brief instant almost overcame 
her. 

But she put it down, and in her heart registered a far 
more solemn vow than her lips had uttered that never, 
through any instrumentality of hers, should Queenie 
know what she knew and what had affected her so power- 
fully, taking away all her strength and seemingly all her 
vitality so that she did not rally or take the slightest 
interest in anything about her. 

At last the physician said Margery* must have a change 


304 


MARGERY S ILLNESS. 


and then Reinette insisted upon taking her to Hetherton 
Place. 

“She will be so quiet there, with nothing to excite 
her, and I shall take care of her all alone. You, I sup- 
pose, will have to stay here and see to the cottage,” she 
said to Mrs. La Rue, who assented in silence, for she 
knew that her presence was a constant source of pain 
and excitement to Margery, who undoubtedly would 
improve more rapidly away from her. 

But she doubted if Hetherton Place was the spot to 
take her, and Margery doubted, too, but Queenie carried 
her point, and bore her off in triumph, leaving Mrs. La 
Rue alone in the cottage to combat her remorse and misery 
as best she could. Everything which love could devise 
or money do was done to make Margery happy at 
Hetherton Place. The sitting-room and sleeping-room 
across the hall from Reinette’s, which were to have been 
Mr. Hetherton’s, were given to her, and all the rarest 
flowers in the greenhouse were brought to beautify them. 
And there the two girls took their meals, and sat and 
talked, or rather Queenie talked, while Margery listened, 
with her hands folded listlessly together, and her eyes 
oftentimes shut, while around her mouth there was a 
firm, set expression, as if she were constantly fighting 
something back, rather than listening to Reinette, who 
chatted gayly on, telling how delightful it seemed to 
have Margery there, and how she wished she could keep 
her always. 

‘•You ought to have just such a home as this. It 
suits you better than the cottage, where it is work, work 
all the time, for people who are some of them small 
enough to think you beneath them because you earn your 
own living,” she said, one afternoon when they sat in 
the gathering darkness, with no light in the room, save 
that which came from the fire in the grate. “ Yes,’' 
Reinette continued, “I do believe you would make a 
titter mistress of Hetherton Place than I do. You are 


MARGERY'S ILLNESS, 


305 


always so quiet, and dignified, and lady-like, while I am 
hot and impuisWe, and do and say things which shock 
my high-bred cousins, Ethel and Grace." 

Margery did not reply, but she was glad her companion 
could not see the pallor which by the faint, sick feeling 
at her heart, she knew was spreading over her face. Just 
then lights were brought in by Pierre, and in a moment 
the supper which the girls took together at that hour 
appeared, and was arranged upon a little rcund table, 
which was drawn near to Margery's easy-chair. 

“This is so nice," Queeniesaid, “ and carries me back 
to Chateau des Fleurs, when we were little girls, and used 
to play at make believe. Do you remember it, Margie?" 

“Yes, yes; I remember; I have forgotten nothing 
connected with you," Margery replied, and Queenie- 
went on: 

“ I made believe so much that you were I, and I was 
you, that I used at times to feel as if it were real, and that 
my rightful home was up in Number Forty, in the Rue 
St. Honore. And once I dreamed that I was actually 
there, alone with the cat, and had to sweep the floor and 
wash the dishes as you used to do." 

“ And how did you like it ? " Margery asked. 

“ How did I like it ? " Queenie repeated, “ I did not like 
it at all. I rebelled against it with all my might. I 
thought I was wearing the apron which you wore the first 
time I ever saw you, and I dreamed I wrenched it off and 
tore it into shreds, and was going to throw myself out of 
the window, when my maid woke me and asked what wa:> 
the matter that I cried out so in my sleep. 1 told her I 
was Margery La Rue, living in Rue St. Honore, and 
wearing coarse clothes, and she couia not oaciiy me till 
she brough my prettiest dress, and showed it to me, with 
my turquoise ring, papa’s last present. That made me 
Reinette Hetherton again, and I grew calm and quiet. 
It was very foolish in me, was it not ^ " 

Margery did not answer at once, but sat looking at 


3o6 


MARGER TS ILLNESS. 


her friend, while the drops of perspiration stood thickly 
oil her forehead and about her mouth, and at last 
attracted Queenie’s notice. 

“ What is it, Margery ?” she said. “ Are you too 
warm ? Let me put a screen between you and the fire.” 

The screen was brought, and, wiping the drops of 
sweat away, Margery rallied and tried to seem cheerful 
and natural, though all the time there was a terrible 
pain tugging at her heart as she kept whispering to her- 
self, “ God help me to keep my vow.” 

That evening Mr. Beresford called, and was admitted 
to Margery’s sitting-room. He had not seen her before 
since her illness, though he had sent to inquire for her 
several times, and had heard various reports with regard 
to the cause of her sudden attack. He had heard that 
she had dropped to the floor in a fit, and had been taken 
up for dead, and that overwork and loss of sleep was the 
cause assigned. But, shrewd and far-seeing as he w^as, 
Mr. Beresford did not believe in the overwork and loss 
of sleep. As nearly as he could calculate, the fainting 
fit had come on about two hours after Reinette’s inter- 
view with Mrs. La Rue. 

There had been ample time for Margery to see her 
mother and demand an explanation, and that an explan- 
ation had been made different from the one given to 
Reinette he did not doubt ; and he was curious to see 
the girl who was beginning to interest him so much. 

The mother had confessed to her daughter he was 
sure; but how would the daughter bear it and what 
would be her attitude toward Reinette, and what would 
the latter say or do if she knew what he suspected, and 
what he fully believed, after he had been a few moments 
in the room and detected the new expression on Mar- 
gery’s face ; the new light and ineffable tenderness in 
her eyes when they rested on Queenie. And yet there 
was something in those eyes and in Margery’s manner 
which baffled the keen-witted lawyer, who was accus- 


MARGERTS ILLNESS, 


307 


tomed to study the human face and leai n what he wished 
to know by its varying expressions. 

There was nothing about Margery indicative of hu- 
miliation or shame. On the contrary it seemed to him 
that there was in her mann'T a certain reassurance and 
dignity he had never notic;.d oefore, and he studied her 
curiously and wondered if after all he was mistaken and 
the insinuations of the clerk in Mentone false. How 
inexpressibly sweet and lovely Margery was, with just 
enough of the invalid about her to make her interesting 
and Mr. Beresford found it difficult to decide which of 
the two girls pleased and fascinated him more, Queenie 
or Margery. Both were very lovely, and he was so 
much interested and attracted that it was very late when 
he at last said good-night to the two young ladies, tell- 
ing Reinette he was going to write the next day to Phil, 
who must be in India by this time. 

For two weeks longer Margeiy remained at Hether- 
ton Place ; but though everything was done for her com- 
fort that love could devise, she did not seem happy, 
neither did her strength come back to her, as Queenie 
had hoped it would. It was very rarely that she ever 
laughed, even at Queenie’s liveliest sallies, and there was 
upon her white face a look of inexpressible sadness, as 
if there were a heavy pain in her heart, of which she 
could not speak. To Reinette she was all sweetness and 
love, and her eyes would follow the gay young girl as 
she flitted about the house, with an expression in them 
which it was hard to fathom or explain, it was so full of 
tenderness, and pity, too, if it were possible to connect 
that word with a creature as bright and merry-hearted as 
Queenie Hetherton was then. Toward Mrs. La Rue, who 
came occasionally to see her, her manner was constrained, 
though always kind and considerate. But something 
had come between the mother and her daughter — some- 
thing which even Queenie noticed and cemmented on to 
Margery, with her usual frankness 


3o8 


MARGERTS JLLNES^ 


“ Your mother acts a& if she were afrai j of you," she 
said to Margery one day, after Mrs. La Rue had been 
and gone. “^She actually seemed to start every time you 
spoke to her, and she watched you as T have seen some 
naughty child watch its mother to see it it was forgiven 
and taken again into favor. I hope, Margery, you are 
not too hard upon her because of that concealment from 
me. / have forgiven it, and nearly forgotten It, and 
surely her own daughter ought to be more lenient than 
a stranger." 

Reinette was pleading for Mrs. La Rue, and as she 
went on, Margery burst into a passionate fit of weeping. 

“Thank you, Queenie," she said, when she could 
speak — “thank you so much. I must have been hard 
toward mother if even you noticed it ; but it shall be so 
no longer. Poor mother ! I think she is not altogether 
right in her mind.” 

The next time Mrs. La Rue came to Hetherton Place 
she had no cause to complain of her reception, for Mar- 
gery’s manner toward her was that of a dutiful and af- 
fectionate child, and when Mrs. La Rue asked : 

“ Are you never coming home to me again, Margery ?" 
she answered her : 

“Yes ; to-morrow, or next day sure. I have left you 
too long already.” 

“ And are you going to stay — always — just the same ?” 
was Mrs. La Rue’s next question, to which Margery re- 
plied : 

“Yes ; stay with you just the same, and try to make 
you happy.” 

They were alone in Margery’s room when this con- 
versation took place, and when Margery said what she 
did, Mrs. La Rue sank down on the floor at her feet, and 
clasping her knees, cried, piteously : 

‘Oh, Margie! my child, my child! God will bless 
you for what you are doing. Oh, if I could undo it all, 


MARGERY'S ILLNESS. 


309 


I would suffer torture for years and years. My noble 
Margie, there are few in the wor’d like you.” 

And she spoke truly; fc.* there have been few like 
Margery La Rue, who, knowing; v/hat she knew, could, 
for the love of one little dark-eyed girl, keep silence, and, 
resolutely turning her back upon all the luxury and ease 
of Hetherton Place, return to her far less pretentious 
home and take up the burden of life again— take up the 
piles of work awaiting her, for her patrons knew her 
worth, and would go nowhere else as long as there was 
a prospect of her ultimate recovery. Even Anna Fergu- 
son had kept her work for Margery, and had postponed 
her wedding that her bridal dress might be made by the 
skillful fingers of the French girl, who at last fixed the 
day for her return to her own home. 

Reineite would fain have kept her longer, but Margery 
was firm in her determination. She had been at Hether- 
ton Place nearly three weeks, and had grown so accus- 
tomed to the ease, and luxury, and elegance about hei 
that the life seemed to belong to her, and was far more to 
her taste than the hard work at the cottace — the stitch^ 
stitch^ stitch^ from morning till night for people, who 
looked down upon her even while they acknowledged 
her great superiority to the persons of her class. It was 
hard to leave it all, hard to leave Quecnie and — — this 
she confessed to herself secretly — hard to lose the oppor- 
tunity of seeing Mr. Beresford, who had been at the 
house so often, and in whom she knew she was beginning 
to feel a deep interest. 

He spent his last evening with them, and, at Queenie’s 
earnest solkitation, Margery played and sang for him, 
while he listened amazed as the clear tones of her rich, 
musical voice floated through the rooms, and her white 
hands fingered the keys as deftly and skillfully aj 
Queenie’s could have done. 

That Margery could sing and play was a re^ elation 


310 MARGERY* S ILLNESS. 

to Mr. Beresford, who stood by her side, and turned the 
leaves for her. 

“You have given me a great pleasure," he said, when 
she at last left the piano and resumed her seat by the fire. 
“This is a surprise to me. I did not suppose 

He did not finish the sentence, but stopped awkwardly, 
while Margery, who understood his meaning perfectly, 
finished it for him. 

“You did not suppose," she said, laughingly, “that 
one of my class could have any accomplishments save 
those of the needle, and it is surprising. But I owe it all 
to Queenie. You remember I told you it was through 
her influence with her father that I was sent to one of the 
best schools in Paris. I think I have naturally a taste 
for music, and so made greater proficiency in that than 
in anything else. If I have pleased you with my playing 
I am glad, but you must thank Queenie for it." 

“Yes," Mr. Beresford answered, thoughtfully, looking 
curiously at each of the young girls, and trying to decide 
which was the more attractive of the two. 

Queenie ab.vays bewildered, and intoxicated, and 
bewitched hiuj, and made him feel very small, and as if 
in some way he had made himself ridiculous, and she 
was laughing at him with her wonderful eyes, while 
Margery, on the contrary, soothed, and quieted, and 
rested him, and, by her gentle deference of manner, and 
evident respect for whatever he said, flattered his self-love, 
and put him in good humor with himself, and during his 
ride home that night he found himself thinking more of 
her sweet face, and of the blue eyes which had looked so 
shyly into his, than of Rcinette’s sparkling, brilliant 
beauty, which seemed to grow more brilliant and 
sparkling every day. 

He had said to Margery that he was glad she was to 
return to town on the mor.-ow, and that he hoped to hear 
her sing again very scon. And as he talked to her he 
kept in his the hand which he had taken when he arose 


MARGEHrS ILLNESS. 


3 ” 


to say good night, and which was very cold, and trembled 
perceptibly as it lay in his broad, warm palm. Was it 
Margery's fancy, or was there a slight pressure of her 
fingers, as he released them — a touch different from that of 
a mere acquaintance, and v/.iich sent through her frame 
a thrill of joy which surprised and bewildered her. 

It wiis not all fancy she was sure, and for hours she 
lay awake, feeling again the clasp of Mr. Beresford’s 
hand and seeing the look in his e5^es when they rested 
upon her. 

“If he knew ! Oh ! if he knew!” was the smothered 
cry in her heart, as she bravely fought back the temptation 
assailing her so sorely, and vowed again that through her 
he should never know what might bring him nearer to her 
if there was that in his heart which she suspected. 

Next morning Margery was later than usual, for she 
lingered long over her toilet, taking, as it were, a regret- 
ful leave of all the articles of luxury with which her 
room was filled. The white cashmere dressing-gown, 
with the pink satin lining, which Oueenie had made her 
use, and the dainty slippers which matched them, were 
laid away for the last time. She should never more 
v/ear such garments as these, for probably she should not 
again be a guest at Hetherton Place. It would not be 
well for her to be there often, for after three weeks’ 
experience of a life so different from her own, there came 
over her for a moment a sense of loathing for her work, 
a herrid feeling of loneliness and homesickness, as she 
remembered the cottage, which she knew was so much 
prettier and p^leasanter than any home she had ever 
known. But it was not like Hetherton Place, and for a 
moment Margery’s weaker nature held her in bondage, 
and her tears fell like rain as she went from one thing 
to another, softiy whispering her farewell. 

Queenie was going to the village w'th her immedi- 
ately after breakfast, and the carriage was waiting for 
them now, she knew, for she heard it when it came to 


312 


THE LETTER. 


the door, and she had heard, too, the sound oi horses 
feet coming rapidly into the yard, and looting from her 
window, had seen David, Mr. Rossiter’s man dismount- 
ing from his steed which had evidently been ridden very 
hard. 

Going down to the dining room at last she saw Rein- 
ette standing near the conservatory with an open letter 
clutched in both hands, her head thrown bac-k, disclosing 
a face which seemed frozen with horror, and her wdiole 
attitude that of one suddenly smitten with catalepsy. 
At the sound of footsteps, however, she moved a little, 
and when Margery went to her, asking what was the 
matter, she held the letter toward her, and whispered 
faintly : 

“Read it.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE LETTER. 

HIL’S last letter had been addressed to his 
mother from Rome, and in it he had written 
that he was to start for India the next day 
with y young man whose acquaintance he 
hed made on the voyage from New York to Havre, and 
who had pfrsu<ided him to go for a week or two to 
Madras, where hi? father was living. Since that time 
nothing had beep heard from Phil, until the young man 
whose name was William Mather, wrote from Madras, as 
follows : 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter : — Respected Friends : I do 
not mink 1 am entire stranger to you, for I am very 
sure your son Philip wrote of me to you in some oi his 
letters. e vvere togeth^ in the same ship, occiipied 



THE LETTER, 


313 

the same state-room, and, as we were of the same age, 
and had many tastes and ideas in common, we soon be- 
came fast friends. I have never met a person whom 1 
liked so much upon a short acquaintance as I did PhiJ ip 
Rossiter. He was so genial, so kind, so unselfish, and 
let me say, with no detriment to him as a man, so like a 
gentle, tender woman in his manner toward everyone, 
that not to like him was impossible. 

“ My parents are American by birth, but I was born 
in Madras, where my father has lived for many years. 
Seeing in your son a true artist’s love and appreciation 
for everything beautiful, both in nature and art, I was 
anxious for him to see my home, which I may say is one 
of the most beautiful places in Madras. So I begged 
him to accompany me thither before going on to Cal- 
cutta, and he at last consented. I was the more anxious 
for this as he did not seem quite we^l ; indeed, be was 
far from being well, although his disease, if he harl any, 
was more mental than physical. Frequently during the 
voyage he would go away by himself and sit for hours 
looking out upon the sea, with a look of deep sadness 
on his face, as if brooding over some hidden grief, and 
once in his sleep, when he was more than usually rest- 
less, he spoke the name Queefiic — whom he said he had 
lost, but in his waking hours he never mentioned her. 
I think, however, that he wrote to her from my father’s 
house at the same time he wrote to you. Probably you 
have received his letter ere this. He was delighted with 
my home, and during the few days he was with us im- 
proved both in health and spirits. He was very fond of 
the water, and as I have a pretty sailing-boat and a 
trusty man to manage it, we spent many hours upon the 
bay, going out one morning fifteen or twenty miles 
along the coast to a spot where my father has some gar- 
dens and a villa. Here we spent the day, and it was 
after sunset when we started to return, full of antici- 
pated pleasure in the long sail upon the waters, which at 
"4 


3^4 


THE LETTER. 


first were so calm and quiet. Gradually, however, there 
came a change, and a dark cloud which, when we started, 
we had observed in the west - it thought nothing of, in- 
creased in size and blackness and spread itself over the 
whole heavens, while fearful gusts of wind, which seemed 
lo blow from every quarter, tossed and rocked our boat 
as if it had been a feather. I think now that Jack, our 
man, must have drank a little too much at the villa, for 
he seemed very nervous and uncertain, and as the storm 
of wind increased, and in spite of all our efforts car- 
ried us out to sea instead of toward the coast, which 
we tried to gain, he lost his self-possession entirely * 
and when there came a gust stronger than any previous 
one, he gave a loud cry and a sudden spring, and then we 
W’ere struggling in the angry water with the boat bottom 
side up beside us. 

“ I seized your son’s arm, and with my other hand 
managed to get a hold upon the boat, w^hich Mr. Rossiter 
and Jack also grasped, and there in the darkness of that 
awful night we clung for hours, constantly drifting 
farther and farther away from the shore, for the gale was 
blowing from the land, and we had no power to stem it. 
Far in the distance we saw the lights of vessels struggling 
with the tempest, but v/e had no means of attracting th# 
attention of the crew, and our condition seemed hopeless, 
unless we could hold on until morning, wrhen we might 
be discovered and picked up. For myself, I felt that I 
could endure it, but I feared for my friend. He was 
breathing very heavily, and I knew his strength was fail- 
ing him, besides his position was not so easy as mine, as 
be had a smoother surface to cling to.” 

‘ If you can get nearer to me,' I said, ‘ I can support 
you with one hand. Suppose you try it.’ 

“ He made a desperate effort to reach me, while I heir 
my hand toward him, and then — oh, how can I tell you 
the rest — there came a great wave and washed him away 

“I heard a wild cry above the storm, and by tht 


THE LETTER, 




lightning's gleam I caught one glimpse of his white face 
as it went down forever. Of what followed, 1 am 
scarcely conscious, and wonder how I was enabled ro 
keep my hold with Jack upon the boat until the storm 
subsided, and the early dawn broke over the still ani.rvy 
waves, when we were rescued from our perilous situation 
by a small craft going on to Madras. I cannot express 
to you my grief, or tell to you my great sorrow. May 
God pity you and help you to bear your loss. If there 
is a Qutefiie in whom your son was interested, and you 
know her, tell her I am certain that, wlrether waking 
or sleeping, she was always in the mind of my dear 
friend, and that a thought of her was undoubtedly with 
him when he sank to rise no more. Indeed, I am suie 
of it, for his last cry which I heard distinctly, was for 
her, and Queenie was the word he uttered just before 
death froze the name upon his lips. You can tell her 
this, or not, as you see fit. 

“ Again assuring you of my heartfelt sympathy, 

“ I am, yours, most respectfully, 

“William J. Mather." 

And this was the letter the Rossiters had received 
and read, and wept over — the mother going from one 
fainting fit into another, and refusing to be comforted, 
because her son Philip was not. And then they sent it 
to Queenie, who read it with such bitter anguish as few 
have ever known, for in her heart she felt that with her 
cruel words and taunts she had sent him to his death. 
She was his murderer, and she felt as if turning into 
stone as she finished the letter and stood clutching it 
tightly, with no power to move or even to cry out. It was 
nice that dreadful phase of nightmare when tlie senses 
are alive to what is passing around one, but the strength 
to stir is gone. There was a choking sensation in her 
throat, as if her heart had icaped suddenly into her 


THE LETTER. 


316 

moufh, and if she could she would have torn the collar 
from her neck in order to breathe more freely. 

When Margery came in she rallied sufficiently to pass 
the letter to her, and that broke the spell and set her free 
from the bands which had bound her so firmly. At first 
no words of comfort came to Margery’s lips. She could 
only put her arms around her fr‘end, and, leading her to 
her room, make her lie down, while she stood over her 
and fubbed her hands and bathed her face, which though 
white as marble, was hot to the touch, like faces burning 
with fever. 

“You won’t go? You will not leave me ?’’ she said 
to Margery, who replied : 

“Of course I shall not leave vou. You staid with 
me, and I must stay with you.” 

Later in the day Mr. Beresford, who had heard the 
dreadful news, came to Hetherton Place, bringing the 
letter which poor Phil had written to Queenie from 
Madras, and which, together with one for his mother, 
had come in the same mail which brought the news of 
his death. 

When Queenie heard he was below asking for her she 
started from her pillow, where she had lain perfectly mo- 
tionless for hours, and said to Margery : 

“ Yes, I will see him. I must vent these horrible 
feelings on some one, or I shall go crazy ! Show him up 
at once.” 

Years ago Margery had seen Queenie in what she 
called her “ moods,” when her evil spirit had the ascen- 
dant, and she fought and struck at anything within her 
reach, but of late these fits had been of rare occurrence, 
and so she was astonished, on her return to the room 
with Mr. Beresford, to see the girl standing erect in the 
middle of the floor, her nostrils dilated and her eyes 
blazing, as they flashed upon Mr. Beresford, whose heart 
was ful l of sot row for his loss, and who went toward her 
to offer his sympathy But Queenie repelled him with 


THE .LETTER, 


3'7 


B fierce gesture of both hands, striking into the air as if 
she would have struck him had he been within her reach. 

“ Don’t speak to me, Arthur Beresford,” she cried, 
and there was something awful in the tone of her voice. 
“ Don’t come near me, or I may do you harm. I am not 
myself to-day, I’m that other one ypu have never seen. I 
know what you are here for without your telling me. 
You have come to talk to me of Phil, to say you are 
sorry for me, sorry he is dead, but I will not hear it. 
You, of all men, shall not speak his name to me, guilty 
as you are of his death, /sent him away, /murdered 
him, but you were the first cause ; you suggested to me 
the cruel words I said to him, and which no man could 
hear and not go away. You talked of Sardanapalus, and 
effeminacy, and weakness, and lack of occupation, and 
every word was a sneer, because, coward that you were, 
you thought to raise yourself by lowering him, and fooi 
that I was, when he came to me and told me of a love 
such as you are incapable of feeling, I spurned him and 
cast your words into his teeth and made him loathe and 
despise himself and made him go away, to seek the 
occupation,, to build up the mafihood you said he lacked ; 
and now he is dead, drowned in those far off eastern 
waters, my Phil, my love, my darling. I am not ashamed 
to say it now. There is nothing unmaidenly in the con- 
fession that I love him as few men have ever been loved, 
and I wish I had told him so that night upon the rocks ; 
I wish I had trampled down that scruple of cousinship 
which looks to me now so small. But I did not, I broke 
his heart, and saw it breaking, too ; I knew it by the 
awful look upon his face, not a look of disappointment 
only ; he could have borne that; few men, if any, die of 
love alone ; but there was on his face a look of unutter- 
able shame and humiliation as if all the manliness of 
his nature had been insulted by my taunts of his woman- 
ish habits and ways. Oh, Phil, my love, my lo^ e ; if he 
could know how my heart is aching for him and will 


3-8 


THE LETTER. 


ache on forever until I find him again somewhe /e m the 
other world ! Don’t speak to me ” she continued, as 
Mr. Beresford tried to say something. “I tell you I am 
dangerous in these moods, and the sight of you who are 
the first cause of my anguish, makes me beside myself. 
You talked some nonsense once about waiting for n»y 
love. I told you then it could not be. I tell it to you 
now a thousand times more strongly. I would ratiier 
be Phil’s wife for one second than to be yours through 
all eternity. Oh, Phil, my love, if I could die and join 
him ; but life is strong within me and I am young and 
must live on and on for years and years with that death- 
cry always sounding in my ears as it sounded that awful 
night when he went down beneath the waters with my 
name upon his lips. Where was I that I did not hear it, 
and know that he was dying ? If I had heard it 
I believe I, too, should have died and joined him on his 
journey through the shades of death. But there was no 
signal ; I did not hear him call, and laughed on as I shall 
never laugh again, for how can I be happy with Phil 
dead in the sea ? ” 

She was beginning to soften ; the mood was passing 
off, and though her face was pale as ashes, the glitter 
was gone from her eyes, which turned at last toward 
Margery, who had looked on in utter astonishment. 

“Oh, Margie, Margie, help me. I don’t know what 
I have been saying. I think I must be crazy,’’ she said, 
as she stretched her arms towards Margery, who went to 
her at once, and leading her to the couch made her lie 
down while she soothed and quieted her until a faint 
color came back to her face, and her heart-beats were not 
so rapid and loud. 

Across the room by the window Mr. Beresford was 
still standing, with a troubled look upon his face, and 
seeing him Queenie called him to her, and putting her 
icv hand in liis. said to him very gently : 

Forgive me if I have v/ounaea you. I am not my» 


THE LETTER, 


319 


self when these moods are upon me. I don't know what 
I said, lor my heart is with Phil, and Phil is in the sea. 
Now go away, please, and leave me alone with Margie.” 

Mr. Beresford bowed, and pressing the hand he held, 
said, in a choking voice : 

“God bless you, Queenie, and comfort you, and for- 
give me if anything I said was instrumental in sending 
Phil away. He was the dearest friend I ever had, the 
one I liked the best and enjoyed the most, and I nevei 
shall forget him or cease to mourn for him. Good-by, 
Queenie ; good-afternoon. Miss La Rue.” 

He bowed himself from the room, and was soon riding 
slowly homeward, with sad thoughts in his heart of the 
friend he had lost and who seemed to bo so near him that 
more than once he started and looked around as if 
expecting to meet Phil’s pleasant face and hear his well- 
remembered laugh. Mr. Beresford belonged to that 
class of men, who, without exactly saying there is no 
God and no hereafter, still doubt it in their hearts, and 
by trying to explain everything on scientific principles, 
throw a vail over the religion they were taught to hold 
so sacred in their childhood. But death had never 
touched him very closely, or borne away that for which 
he mourned with a very keen or lasting sense of loss and 
pain. His father had died when he was a boy, and 
though his mother lived till he was a well-grown youth, 
she had not attached him very strongly to her. He had 
been very proud of her as an elegant, fashionable woman 
who sometimes came in her lovely party dress to look at 
him before going out to some place of amusement, but 
he had never known what it was to be petted and caressed, 
and when she died his sorrow was neither deep nor 
lasting, and in his maturer manhood, when the seeds of 
skepticism were taking root, he could think without a 
pang that possibly there was beyond this life no place 
where loved ones meet again and friendships are renewed ; 
nothing but oblivion — a long, dreamless sleep. 


330 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 


But now that Phil was dead — Phil, who had been so 
much to him — Phil, whom he loved far better than the 
cold, unsympathetic elder brother who had died years 
ago, he felt a bitter sense of loss, and pain, and loneliness, 
and as he rode slowly home in the gathering twilight of 
that wintry afternoon, and thought of that bright young 
life and, active mind so suddenly blotted out of existence, 
if his theory was true, he suddenly cried aloud : 

“It cannot be; Phil is not gone from me forever. Some- 
where we must meet again. Death could only stupefy, 
not quench, all that vitality. There is something beyond; 
there is a rallying point, a world where we shall meet 
those whom we have loved and lost. And Phil is there, 
and some day I shall find him. Thank God for that 
hope — thank God there is a hereafter." 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

MOURNING FOR PHIL. 

T was very bitter and deep, and all the more so 
because the blow had fallen so suddenly, 
without a note of warning. At the Knoll 
there was a small and select dinner party the 
evening the letter came. Some friends from Boston 
were visiting in the house, and Mrs. Rossiter had invited 
a few of the villagers to meet them, and in her evening 
dress of claret velvet, with diamonds in her ears and at 
her throat, she looked as lovely and almost as young as 
in her early girlhood when she won the heart of the 
grave and silent Paul Rossiter. Dinner had been over 
some little time, and she was standing with her guests in 
the drawing-room when the fatal letter was brought to 



MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


321 


her. She saw it was from Madras, and that the hand- 
v/riting was a stranger’s ; and though it was directed to 
her husband, who immediately after dinner had wan- 
dered off to his conservatories, ^where he spent most of 
his time, she opened it unhesitatingly, feeling sure tiiat 
it contained tidings of her son, and feeling, too, with 
tlcit subtle intuition which so often precedes dreadful 
news, that the tidings were not good. But she was not 
prepared to hear that Phil was dead ; and when she read 
that he would never return to her again, she gave one 
long, agonizing shriek, and dropped upon the floor in a 
faint so nearly resembling death that for a little while 
they feared she was reall)'- dead. Fortunately the family 
physician was among the guests, and so relief was imme- 
diate, or she might never have returned to conscious- 
ness, so terrible was the shock to her nervous system. 
For hours she passed frotn one fainting fit into another, 
and when these were over lay in a kind of semi-stupor, 
moaning at intervals: 

“ Oh, my boy ! my Phil, my darling — dead — gone 
from me forever — my boy, my boy !” 

If Mrs. Rossiter had a weakness it was her love for 
her son. Phil had been her idol, and if her husband 
and both her daughters had lain dead at her feet and 
Phil had been spared to her, she would not have felt so 
badly as she did now when she still had husband and 
daughters, but Phil w'as not. Nothing availed to soothe 
or quiet her, and the house which had heretofore been so 
bright and cheerful, and full of gayety, became a house 
of sorrow and gloom. The servants trod softly through 
the silent halls, and spoke only in whispers to each other, 
while Ethel and Grace, with traces of bitter weeping 
upon their f:ur, sweet faces, sat from morning till night 
with folded hands looking hopelessly at each other as if 
paral)'zed by the awful calamity which had fallen up;)n 
them. They were of no use to their mother, who lav in 
her darkened room, refusing to see any one except hei 

lA* 


MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


322 

husband, whom she kept constantly with her, and who 
gave no sign of what he thought or felt. Quiet, patient 
all enduring, he sat by his wife’s bedside and listened to 
her moans, and did what she bade him do ; left her when 
she said so ; returned to her when she sent for him, and 
if he felt pain or grief himself uttered no word, and 
never mentioned Philip’s name. 

Of Mr. Rossiter we have said comparatively nothing, 
as he has but little to do with the story, except as the 
father of Phil. He was a very peculiar man — silent, 
unsocial, undemonstrative, and, save for hia love and 
admiration for his wife, apparently indifferent to 
everything except his four conservatories, ana what 
they contained. Had he been poor and obliged to 
earn his own living he would unquestionably have been 
a gardener, so fond was he of flowers and plants of ev- 
ery kind. He had walked miles through the tangled 
glades of Florida, hunting for some new specimens of 
terns or pitcher-plants, and his greenhouses were full of 
exotics from every clime. Here, and in the room adjoin- 
ing, where he kept his catalogues and books of pressed 
leaves and flowers, he spent most of his time, and if be- 
guiled away from his favorites for a few moments he was 
always in a hurry to return to them. It w’as in one of 
his conservatories that the news of his son’s death 
reached him. After dinner was over he had asked his 
gentlemen guests to go with him and see a new kind of 
fern, gathered <^he previous autumn in some of the 
neighboring swamps, and he was talking most eloquently 
of its nature and habits when his wife’s shriek reached 
him, and the next moment a servant rushed in, exclaim- 
ing * 

“ Oh sir, come quick, Mrs. Rossiter has fainted, and 
Mr. Philip is drowned.” 

‘‘Drowned ! My son drowned ! Did you say Philip 
was dead ? It will gc hard with his poor mother,” he 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 


323 


said very calmly, as he put the pot of ferns carefully back 
in its place. 

But the hands which held the pot trembled, and the 
palms were wet with gt<r-\t drops of sweat, as he went 
slowly to the room whc.e his wife lay in a swoon. He 
was a small man. and weak, too, it would seem, but it 
was he wiio lifted the fainting woman up and bore her to 
her chamber and loosened her dress, and took the 
diamonds from her throat and ears, and the flowers f]'om 
her hair, as quickly and skillfully as her daughters could 
have done. There was a good deal of Phil in his nature, 
and he showed it in his womanly and quiet manner at 
the sick bed. 

“ Poor Mary, I am so sorry for you,” he said, and 
pressed his lips to the forehead of his wife, who clung to 
him as a child in pain clings to its mother. 

But there were no tears in his eyes, as the days passed 
by, no change in his manner, as he went about his usual 
vocations and watered his ferns and tended his orchids 
and picked off the dead leaves from the roses and carna- 
tions, and smoked the lilies and roses on which insects 
were gathering. 

“ Where have you been so long?” his wife asked him 
once, when he came to her after an absence of more 
than an hour. 

Been watering my ferns,” was his reply, and with a 
half reproachful sob his wife continued : 

“ Oh, Paul, how can you care for such things with 
Philip dead ?” 

“ I don’t know, Mar)%” he answered, apologetically. 
“ I am sorry if I have done anything out of character ; 
the little things seem so glad for the water, and if I was 
to let every fern, and orchid, and pitcher-plant die, it 
would not bring Philip back.” 

Had he then no feeling, no sorrow for his son ? Mrs. 
Rossiter almost thought so ; but that night waking sud- 
denly from a qu'et sleep, she missed him from her side 


324 


MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


and raising herself in bed, saw him across the loom by 
the window, where the moonligh; was streaming in, 
kneeling upon the floor with his face buried in a piLow 
he had lain upon a chair, the better to smother the sobs 
which seemed almost to rend his soul from his body, they 
were so deep and pitiful. 

“ Phil, Phil, my boy, how can I live without him ? I 
was so proud of him and loved him so much. Oh, Phil, 
they think me cold and callous, because I cannot talk and 
moan as others do, but God knows my bitter pain. God 
help me, and Mary, too. Poor Mary, who was his 
mother, and loved him, maybe, more than I did. God 
comfort her and help her to bear, no matter what I 
suffer.” 

This was what Mrs. Rossiter heard, and in a moment 
she was beside the prostrate man — her arms were around 
his neck, and his bowed head was laid against her 
bosom, while she kissed his quivering lips again and 
again, as she said to him : 

Forgive me, Paul, if I have been so selfish in my 
own grief as not to see how you, too, have suffered. Phil 
was our own boy, Paul ; we loved him together, we will 
mourn for him together, and comfort each other, and 
love each other better because we have lost him.” 

Then Paul Rossiter broke down and cried as few 
men ever cry, and sobbed till it seemed as if his heart 
would break, while his wife, now the stronger and 
calmer of the two, supported him, and tried to comfort 
him. There was perfect accord and confidence between 
the husband and wife after that, and Mrs. Rossiter roused 
herself to something like cheerfulness and interest in 
the world about her for the sake of the man who, except 
to her, never mentioned Philip’s name, but who grew old 
ard gray and bent so fast and sometimes even forgot to 
wate'* his ferns and let them dry and wither in theii 
pots, where they might ha-^e died but for his wife, whe 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 325 

took charge of them herself, and gave them the care 
they needed. 

Like their father, Ethel and Grace were very quiet in 
their grief, which was not the less acute for that. A 
thought of Phil was always in their hearts, though thev 
never spoke of him voluntarily, and always changed the 
conversation as soon as possible when his name was 
mentioned. But oh, how they missed him everywhere 1 
missed his quick, springing step upon the walk as he 
came in, bright, and fresh, and gay, from doing nothing 
— his cheery whistle, or snatches of song, or his playful 
badinage, and all the thousand little acts by which a 
good, kind brother can make himself beloved. If they 
could have seen him dead — if his body could have been 
brought home and buried in quiet Merrivale, under the 
shadows of the pines, where they could have kept his 
grave bright with flowers and watered it with their tears 
— it would have been some solace for their pain. But 
alas ! he had no grave, no resting-place, save those deep, 
dark Eastern waters, and who could tell what horrid 
monster of the deep might have torn and mangled his 
manly form ere it reached the bottom of the sea ! It 
was too horrible to think of ; and the faces of his mother 
and sisters grew whiter and thinner each day, for each 
day they missed more and more the young man who had 
been the sunlight of their home. 

Poor Grandma Ferguson, too, was completely pros- 
trated at first with the suddenness of the blow, and ccmld 
only sit and cry like a little child for the boy whom she 
had loved so dearly, and who had always been kind and 
affectionate to her. 

“No matter if I ain’t nothin’ but a homespun, uned- 
dicated critter ; he never acted an atom ashamed of me, 
and when he had some high young city bucks visitin’ 
him he alius brought ’em to sec me and get some of my 
strawberry shortcake or mince pies,” she said to a neigh- 
bor who was trying to comfort her. “ Pie never sassed 


326 


MO URNING FOR PHIL. 


me but once, and then he was a boy, and didn’t know no 
better, and he was sorry, too,” she said ; and she went 
on to relate the circumstances of his coming to her the 
night before he went away to school, and asking her for- 
giveness for the rude words he had said to her, when she 
kissed him and called him her baby. 

He V7.as her only grandson, and her heart was very 
sore and full of pain ; and, laying aside her brown silk 
dress, which she had thought to wear at Anna’s wedding, 
she clothed herself in deepest black, and thought and 
talked of nothing but her boy, her Phil, “ drownded in 
the Ingies.” 

As for Anna, she cried herself into a sick headache 
the first day, and declined to see the major, when he 
called. But she received him the next day, and was a 
good deal comforted by the beautiful necklace and 
pendant of onyx and pearls he brought to her with a view 
to assuage her grief, which was not very lasting. She 
liked Phil well enough, and his sudden death was a great 
shock to her, but she liked the major better, or, rather, 
she liked the costly presents he made her, and the position 
he would give her when she became his wife, as she 
expected to do in a few weeks. The grand wedding, 
however, which she was intending to have, must now be 
given up ; and this, perhaps, added a little to her sorrow 
and regret for Phil’s untimely end. 

Outside of his family, too, there was deep mourning 
for the young man who had been so popular with every 
one, and of whom it was said that he had not a single 
enemy. But now'here was there a heart so full of pain 
and remorse as at Hetherton Place where Queenie shut 
herself in her room and refused to see any one except 
Margery and Pierre. 

She had read with a fresh burst of anguish Phil’s 
letter written her from Madras — a letter full of tender- 
ness and love, showing how he kept her still in his heart 
as the dearest, sweetest memory of his life, and at the 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 


327 


close containing a few words of passionate entrea.y that 
she would overcome her scruples, and bid him come back 
to her by and by. 

“ Not now,” he wrote, “not while I am the shiftless, 
aimless block you were right to despise, but after I have 
shown that there is something in me besides a love of 
indolence and feminine occupations, will you reconsider, 
Queenie, and see if you cannot love me?” 

“Yes, Phil, oh, Phil !” Queenie cried, as she finished 
reading this letter, which she covered with her kisses, and 
then kept under her pillow where she could find it 
readily when the fancy took her to read it. 

Everything Phil had given her or helped to make, 
was brought to her chamber where she could see it, for 
she refused to go down stairs, but stayed constantly in 
her own room, sometimes pacing restlessly to and fro, 
but often lying down with her face to the wall and her 
eyes open day and night, for she could neither sleep nor 
cry, and her head seemed bursting with its pressure of 
blood and pain. 

“ If I could cry,” she said once to Margery, as she 
pressed her hands to her throbbing temples, “ it would 
loosen the tightness in my throat and about my heart, 
but I cannot, and I am so tired, and sick, and faint, I 
shall never cry again or sleep.” 

And it would almost seem as if she spoke the truth, 
for no tears came to cool her burning eyelids, and her 
eyes grew larger and brighter each day, while sleep such 
as she once had known had deserted her entirely. They 
gave her bromide, and morphine, and chloral in heavy 
doses, but these only procured for her snatches of troubled 
sleep which were quite as exhausting as wakefulness for 
she always saw before her that dark waste of waters, 
with the white face of her lover upturned to the pitiless 
Sky, and heard always that wild cry Jor her who had been 
his evil star. Every morning the family at the Knoll 
sent to inquire for her, and every evening M: Beresford 


MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


328 

rode over to Hetherton Place to ask how she was. And 
sometimes he staid for half an hour or more, and talked 
with Margery, not always of the sick girl, or l*hil, but of 
things for which each had a liking and sympathy — of 
pictures, and statuary, and ks — and Mr. Beresford 

was surprised and delighted to find how intelligent 
Margery was, and how much she knew of the literature 
of other countries than France. 

“I always had a fancy for everything English or 
American, particularly the latter,” she said to Mr. Beres- 
ford, one evening when they had been discussing English 
and American authors, and he had expressed his surprise 
that a French girl should be so well posted. 

“You like our country, then?” he said. “Did you 
ever wish you were part or whole American instead of 
French ? ” and he shot a curious glance at her to see what 
effect his question would have upon her. 

For an instant her cheeks were scarlet, and then she 
turned very white about her lips, and her voice was not 
quite steady as she replied, “I pray God to make me 
content in that station to which he has called me, and if 
he has willed it that I should be French, then French I 
will remain forever.” 

It was a strange answer, and seemed made more to 
herself than to Mr. Beresford, who felt more certain than 
ever that Margery knew what he suspected, and was 
bravely keeping it to herself, for fear of wounding and 
humiliating Queenie. What a noble woman she seemed 
to him, and how fast the interest he felt in her r pened 
into a liking during the days when he went nightly to 
Hetherton Place, ostensibly to ask after Queenie, but 
really for the sake of a few minutes’ talk with Margery 
La Rue, who was fast learning to watch for hio corning, 
and to feel her pulses quicken when he came, and taking 
her hand in his, held it there while he put the usual round 
of questions with regard to Queenie and herse'f, appear 


MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


3^9 


mg at last almost as much intciested In her welfare as 
in Queenie’s. 

It was the dawning of a new life for Maigery, this 
feeling, that Mr. Bereslord, thv. proudest man in Merri- 
vaie, found delight in her society and loved to linger at 
her side. It made everything else so easy, and her life 
was not one of perfect rest, lor Queenie did not improve 
as the days went on, and to soothe, and quiet, and 
minister to her was not an easy matter. She could noi 
sleep, and the physician who attended her was beginning 
:o fear for her reason, when she one day said toMargery, 
“ Where is your mother ? Why has she never been to 
see me ? Doesn’t she care for me any more ?” 

“ She cares very much,” Margery replied, “ and she 
has been here several times to ask for you, but as you 
would not see your cousins or grandmother, she did not 
suppose you would see her. Will you see my mother?” 

Yes, send for her,” was Queenie’s answer, and Pierre 
was dispatched to Mrs. La Rue, with the message that 
Miss Hetherton was anxious to see her. 

And so Mrs. La Rue went to Hetherton Place, and 
up to the room where Queenie sat in her easy-chair, with 
her face so pale and pinched, and her eyes so large and 
bright, that the impulsive Frenchwoman uttered a cry 
of alarm, and going to her, threw her arms around 
her, and cried, “ Oh, Queenie, mj^ child, tliat I should 
find you so changed.” 

“Yes, Christine,” Queenie replied, freeing herself 
from the stifling embrace, “ I suppose 1 am changed. I 
feel it myself, and believe I shall die if I do not sleep. 
I have not slept a good sleep since I heard Phil was 
dead, and I have sent for you to hold me in your arms, 
just as you must have done when I was a baby, after 
mother died. Sing me the old lullabies you used to sing 
me then, and maybe I shall sleep. I feel as if I should — 
there is such a heaviness about my lids and pressure cn 
my brain. Take me, Christine, _ Play I am a baby again. 


330 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 


I can’t be very heavy now,” and she smiled a faint, 
shadowy smile, as she put up her arms to the woman who 
took her up so gladly and covered the wan face with 
kisses and tears, while she murmured words of pity and 
endearment. 

“There, that will do — it wearies me,” Queenie said, 
and she laid her tired head upon Christine’s shoulder 
and closed her heavy eyelids. “ Rock me to sleep, Chris- 
tine, as you did at Chateau des Fleurs^' she whispered, 
faintly, and, sitting down in the chair, Christine rocked 
the poor little girl, and sang to her, in a low, sad voice, 
a lullaby of France, such as she used to sing when, as 
now, the dark curly head was pillowed on her breast. 

Attracted by the sound, Margery stole softly to the 
door and looked in, but Christine motioned her awav 
and went on with her song of “ Mother Mary, guard 
my child,” until nature, which had resisted every exer- 
tion and every drug, however powerful, gradually began 
to yield — the head pressed more heavily, the rigid nerves 
.softened, a slight moisture showed itself under the hair 
upon the forehead, and the eyes, which had been so wild 
and bright, were closed in slumber. 

Queenie was asleep at last, and when Margery came 
again to the door of the room and saw the closed eyes 
and the parted lips, from which the breath came easily 
and regularly, she exclaimed : 

“Thank God, she sleeps at last. You have saved hei 
life — or, at least, her reason ; but let me help you lay hei 
.iown. She is too heavy for you to hold, and you are 
not strong.” 

“No, no,” Mrs. La Rue answ’ered, almost fiercely 
“No, no, 1 will not give her up, now that I have her in 
my arms. I am not tired. I do not feel her weight any 
more than I did when she was a baby, and if I did, 
think you I would not do it all the same — I who have so 
longed to hold her as I do now. Go away, Margie, and 
leave us alone again.” 


MOURNING FOR PHIL. 


33* 


So Margery went away » second time, 2 .nd busitd 
herself below with some work she had been persuaded 
to take, and which was a part of Anna’s bridal trousseau, 
for that young lady had insisted upon her making the 
traveling dress, which was all there was now to finish ol 
the elaborate and expensive wardrobe for which, it was 
said, the major’s money paid. 

And while Margery worked in the sitting-room be- 
low, Mrs. La Rue sat in the chamber above, holding the 
sleeping girl, until her limbs were cramped, and numb- 
and ached with intolerable pain, while rings of fire 
danced before her eyes, and in her ears there was a 
humming sound, and a fullness in her head, as if all the 
blood of her body had centered there. And still she did 
nut move, lest she should awaken the sleeper, but sat as 
motionless as a figure carved from stone, sometimes 
shutting her tired eyes, and again fixing them with a 
steady gaze upon the upturned face resting on her arm. 

Two hours had gone by, and Mrs. La Rue was 
beginning to feel that her strength was failing her, when 
Queenie at last awoke, and said, very sweetly and kindly : 

“ I have been asleep, I am sure, and 1 feel so much 
better. How good in you, Christine, to hold me so long. 
It must have tired you very much. Thank you, dear old 
Christine !” 

And taking the pallid face between both her hands, 
Queenie kissed it lovingly, thereby paying the tired 
woman for her two hours’ endurance. 

Queenie was much better after that long sleep. The 
spell which bound her so relentlessly was broken, and 
she improved steadily both in health and spirits, but 
would let neither Mrs. La Rue nor Margery leave her. 

I shall sink right back again into that dreadful 
nervousness if you go away,” she said. “ I need you 
both to keep me up — Margery to cheer me by day, and 
Christine to soothe me to sleep at night, when the wo*^ld 
is the blackest, and Phil’s dead face seems so c' ose .o 


33 * 


MOURNING FOR PHIL, 


mine that I can almost feel its icy touch, and can hear 
his bitter cry for me. Only Christine’s song can drown 
that cry, which, I think, will haunt me forever.” 

So the two women stayed, Margery busying herself 
with the work which her former customers persisted In 
bringing to her as soon as they heard she was free to do 
anything of that sort, and Christine devoting herself to 
Queenie, to whom she talked of the days when she fiist 
entered the service of Mrs. Hetherton in Paris. Reinette 
was never tired of hearing of her mother, and the same 
story had to be told many times ere she was satisfied. 

“ It brings her so near to me to hear all this,” she 
said to Christine, one evening when they sat together by 
the firelight in Queenie’s room, and Christine had been 
describing a dress which her mistress wore to a grand 
ball at which dukes and duchesses were persent. “I like 
to think of her in that lovely dress, and she was happy, 
too, I am sure, though you have sometimes talked as if 
she were not. I know my father loved her very much, 
though he might not have shown it before you. Men 
are different from women. Did he never pet her in 
your presence ?” 

“ Oh, yes, sometimes, and called her his little Daisy — 
that was his pet name for her,” Christine replied, and 
Reinette rejoined : 

“ Daisy is such a sweet name. I wish it were mine, 
though Queenie does very well. I like pet names so 
much. Did you ever have one? I hardly know v\hat 
could be made of Christine.” 

Mrs. La Rue was gazing steadily into the fire, and 
did not at once reply, and when at last she did, she said, 
“ I have been called Tina,” 

“ Tina^'* Reinette exclaimed, starting suddenly, while 
like a flash of lightning there shot through her brain the 
memory of the long black tress she had burned and the 
letter whose writer had signed herself Tina. “ Who used 


TINA, 


333 


to call you Ttna ?** she demanded. Was it your Hus- 
band ?” 

Not a muscle of Christine’s face moved, nor did her 
voice tremble in the least, as she replied : 

“ Yes ; there was more sentiment in his nature than 
any onj would suppose from seeing him. He was very 
fond of me at times.” 

Just then Pierre came in bringing candles and a 
tray with his mistress’ supper upon it, and the conver- 
sation was brought to a close, nor was it resumed again, 
for after tea Margery came up and sat with Reinette and 
her mother until the latter asked to be excused, and 
etired to her room. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


TINA. 



EINETTE kept saying the name over to herself 
after Margery left her, and when at last she 
was in bed it repeated itself again and again 
in her brain, while a horrible suspicion, the 
exact nature of which she could not define, was forcing 
itself into her mind. To sleep was impossible, and with 
all her old wakefulness upon her, she tossed restlessly 
from side to side until she heard the clock strike one. 

I cannot lie here,” she said, and putting on her 
dressing-gown she drew her chair to the grate where the 
fire which Pierre had replenished just before she retired 
was burning, and with her face buried in her hands, be- 
gan to think such thoughts as made the drops of perspi- 
ration stand thickly upon her forehead and about her 
lips. 

“ Who was the Tina who wrote to my fathe' ?” nhc 
asked herself. 


334 


TINA. 


Not Christine ; that would be too horrible. Chris- 
tine had been her mother’s maid, and it was not like a 
proud man like Frederick Hetherton to think of such as 
she. There were other Tinas in the world. The writer 
of the letter was some bright-eyed, bright-faced girl of 
humble origin, who had caught her father’s fancy for a 
few days and been flattered by a kind word from him, 
and possibly, he was for the moment more interested in 
, her than he ought to have been. That was all ; and she 
was foolish to be so disquieted. 

Thus Queenie reasoned, or tried to, but all the time a 
terrible fear was tugging at her heart, and she was living 
over again that dreadful death scene on the ship when 
her father made her swear to forgive him whatever might 
come to her knowledge. She had thought at first that 
he meant her American relations, of whom he had never 
told her, and she had forgiven that long ago. Then 
came the mystery concerning Christine and her conceal- 
ment of her identity, but Reinette had recovered from 
that and still there was a nameless terror at her heart, 
as she sat alone in her room while the clock struck the 
hours two and three, and the fire in the grate grew 
lower, and the winter night seemed to grow thicker and 
colder around her. 

At last, when she could keep still no longer, she arose, 
and pacing the room hurriedly, beat the air with her 
hands, as she was wont to do under great excitement. 

“What is it I fear?” she asked herself. “What is it 
I suspect ? Let me put it into words, and see if it sounds 
so very dreadful. I suspect that Christine Bodine, in her 
girlhood — when, I dare say, she was rather pretty and 
piquant, after mother died made herself very neces- 
sary to my father and attracted him more than she 
ought to have done. Such people are very ambitious, 
and susceptible, too ; and if my father was at all familiar 
in his manner toward her, she probably was flattered at 
once, and maybe cheated herself, into the belief that he 


TINA. 


335 


would marry her, when such an idea never existed in his 
brain. She probably wrote to him, and he answered 
and at last made her see how mistaken she was in 
supposing he could ever think of her after having known 
my mother. And then, by way of amends, he settled that 
money upon her. Yes, that is probably the fact of the 
case,” she continued, and the tightness around her heart 
gave way. She could breathe more freely, and her hands 
ceased to beat the air, until like lightning there flashed 
into her mind : 

“ But where was Mr. La Rue, and where was Mar- 
gery, when Christine wrote those letters to my father ? 
Christine told me she was married soon after mother 
died, and that father was angry about it, as it took her 
from me. Oh, if I only knew the truth — and f can know 
it, in part, at least, by reading those letters which I hid 
away, swearing never to touch them, unless circumstances 
should seem to make it necessary ; and it is necessary, I 
am sure. I must know the truth, or lose my mind. I 
am so unsettled since poor Phil died, and to brood over 
this will make me crazy in time. Yes, I must know who 
was the Tina who wrote those letters to father.” 

I Reinette had reached a decision ; and, lighting her 
candle, she opened the door of the closet where she had 
hidden the letters months before. There was the box on 
the upper shelf just where she had left it, and where she 
could not reach it without a chair. This she brought 
from her room, and stepping into it, stood a moment 
looking at the box, while a feeling of terror began tu 
take possession of her, and she felt as if the dead hand of 
her father were clutching her arm and holding her back. 

I do not believe I will do it,” she said, as she came 
down from the chair with a sense of that dead hand’s 
touch still upon her arm. “ It seems just as if father 
were speaking to me and bidding me let the letters 
alone. ^ wish I had burned them when I found them, 


33 ^ 


T/JVA, 


and then I should not be tempted. And why not burn 
them now, and so put it out of my reach to read them ?" 
she continued, as she stood shivering before the hearth 
and listening to the storm which v/as beginning to beat 
against tlie windows. 

February was coming in with gusts of snow and the 
shrieks of the wild north wind, which swept furiously 
past the house, and seemed to Reinette to have in it a 
sound of human sobbing. She thought of her father in 
the quiet grave-yard in Merrivale, with the tall pine over- 
hanging his grave — of her mother, far off in Rome, 
where the violets and daisies blossom ail the year round 
--and of Phil, asleep beneath the Eastern waters, with 
nothing to mark his grave, and her heart ached with a 
keener pai/i than she had ever felt before as she stood in 
her slippers and dressing-gown and shivered in the cold, 
gray, winter night. And always above everything else 
the name of Tina was in her mind, with a burning desire 
to solve the mystery and know who Tina was, and what 
she had been to Mr. Iletherton. 

“ I may as well burn them, first as last,” she thought, 
and going again to the closet and mounting upon the 
chair she took the box from the shelf, and carrying it to 
the fire vsat down upon the floor and began to open it. 

There were four boxes in all, one within another, and 
Queenie opened each one till she came to the last and 
smallest, where lay the envelope containing the letters. 

“ The:e can be no harm in glancing at the handwrit- 
ing, and then if I ever see Christine’s, as I sometime 
may, I shall know if they are the same,” she thought, 
•and took out the yellow, time-worn package, which 
seemed to her so different from anything pertaining to 
herself or to her surroundings. 

Looking at the outside begat an intense longing to 
know what was inside— to have her doubts confirmed or 
scattered to the winds, and at last she made a desperate 


THE LETTERS, 


337 


resolve, and jerking her arm, which it seemed to her the 
dead hand still held firmly, she said, aloud : 

“ I shall read these letters now, though a thousand 
dead hands hold me.” 

Queen ie felt herself growing very calm as she said 
this, and though outward the storm raged with greater 
fury, and the sobbing of the wind was wilder and louder 
than before, she neither heeded nor heard it, for she had 
opened the letters, and selecting that which bore date 
farthest back, began to read. And as she read, she forgot 
how cold she was — forgot that the fire was going out — 
forgot the fearful storm which shook the solid founda- 
tions of the great house, and screamed like so many 
demons past the windows — forget even that Phil was 
dead in the Indian sea, so horrible were the sensations 
crowding upon her and overmastering every thought and 
feeling save the one dreadful conviction that now she 
knew who Tina was, and that the knowledge paralyzed 
for the time every other sensation. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE LETTERS. 

HEY were written at different times, with an 
interval of some months between two of 
them — but all were dated at Marseilles, where 
the writer seemed to be living in lodgings, 
for in the first letter she said : “The rooms suit me ex- 
actly, and are very pleasant and a constant reminder of 
your kindness. I have found a trusty woman to stay 
with me, and if I could see you oftener I should be quite 
content, only I never can forget the sweet lady who di^d 
in my arms, believing in me as the best of servants. 



15 


338 


THE LETTERS. 


What would she say if she knew how soon I took her 
place in your affection? Sometimes I think she is 
here in the room watching me, and then I am afraid, 
and rush into the street until the terror is past." 

That was Christine, sure, for mother died in her 
arpas," Reinette whispered, faintly, while a prickly sen- 
sation was in every nerve, and her lips quivered convul- 
sively. 

And still she read on, taking next the second letter, 
the one which had contained the lock of hair, and which 
was written two or three months after the first. Evident- 
ly Mr. Hetherton had been in Marseilles and seen the 
writer, for she spoke of his recent visit and the great 
pleasure it had given her. It was in this letter that she 
called herself his little Tina^ and had written : “I have 
been sick most of the time since you were here, and that 
is why I did not answer your letter at once. You were 
so kind to me and treated me with so much tenderness 
that I cannot help believing you mean to make me your 
wife before the world just as you said you made me your 
wife before Heaven. But why put it off any longer? 
Can you not bring a clergyman here, and not wait till 
people call me a bad woman, which God knows I never 
meant to be. Oh, if you would take me to Chateau des 
Fleurs as your wife. I would be your very slave and 
make up to you in love and fidelity what I lack in culture. 
You say I am very pretty. You praised my eyes and hair 
when you were here, and so I send you a lock of the 
latter, and hope it will sometimes remind you of your 
little Tina." 

“That's the tress I burned," Queenie whispered, feel- 
ing as if she, too, were burning and writhing on live 
coals just as the lock of blue-black hair had writhed and 
hissed in the flame. 

But there was still another letter, and she read it, 
while every hair of her head seemed to stand on end, and 
instead of burning with heat she shook with cold, as she 


THE LETTERS, 


339 


devoured the contents, which threw such a flood of light 
upon what had gone before, and which she had not sus- 
pected. She had read enough to make her hate Christine, 
and almost hate her father, who, she felt, was most to 
blame, but she had no suspicion <•'< the real state of things 
until she began to read the t,..ird letter, which showed 
great physical weakness on the part of the writer. 

“Dear Mr. Hetherton,” it began, “I have been so 
sick that the old woman who attends me thought I should 
die, but I am better now, though still so weak as scarcely 
to be able to hold my pen. But I must tell you of my 
dear little girl who was born two weeks ago, and who 
now lies sleeping at my side.” 

“ What r Reinette exclaimed, aloud, clasping both 
hands to her forehead as if a heavy blow had fallen there. 
“ What does she say? A little girl born in Marseilles — 
that was — Margery^ 

She could scarcely articulate the last word, for her 
tongue was thick and parched, and in her ears was a sound 
like the roar of the wind outside. 

“Oh, oh!” she cried, throwing up her hands as if 
in quest of some support ; then they dropped helplessly 
at her side, and she fell forward upon her face, with the 
blood gushing from her nose and staining her dressing- 
gown. How long she lay thus, she did not know, for 
since the clock struck three she had taken no note of 
time, but when she came to herself the cold gray of the 
early dawn was stealing into the room, and far away in 
the vicinity of the kitchen she heard the sound of some 
one stirring. The fire was out, and the candle was out, 
and she was cold, and stiff, and bewildered, and could not 
at first remember what had happened. But it came back 
to her with the rustling of the letter she still held in her 
hand — came with a terrible pain, which made her cry out 
faintly as she staggered to her feet, and lighted another 
candle, for she had not finished the letter yet. But she 
finished it at last and laid it with the others, while there 


34C 


THE LETTER, 


swept over her a feeling ol delight, mingled with the 
horror she had at first experienced. 

Margery was that little girl bore in Marseilles, and 
whom Christine was sure Mr. Hetherton would love, 
because he was so fond of children. 

“Yes, that was Margery,*' sue said, “and if so, she is 
my sister. Does she know, I wonder? Did Christine 
tell her the day she was so suddenly taken ill, and is that 
the reason she has seemed so different since? seemed to 
shun me at times as if afraid of me? Yes, she knows, 
and I shall tell her that I know, too, and that I love her 
better than ever. She is not to blame. No one can 
censure her, or cast a slight upon her, for she is tny sister^ 
and I shall proclaim her as such, and bring her to live 
with me, and share my fortune with her, and make her 
take her father’s name. But Christine must not stay. I 
could not endure to see her every day, and be thus 
reminded of all I had lost in losing faith in my father. 
Christine must go. She was false to mother^ false to me j 
and where was I when she was living in Marseilles ? She 
could not have cared for me long after mother died. I do 
not believe she ever took me to Chateau des Fleurs, or 
ever was my nurse, as I have supposed. I have wasted 
too much love on her, but I know her now, and shall deal 
with her accordingly.” 

Such, in substance, were Reinette’s thoughts as she 
fiat shivering in the cold, cheerless room, while the 
morning light crept in at the windows, and she could 
see herself distinctly in the glass upon the mantel. 

It was a very white, haggard face which looked at her 
from the mirror, and the eyes almost frightened her witti 
their expression. About her mouth and on the front of 
her dress were spots of blood which had dropped from her 
nose while she was unconscious, and which added to her 
unnatural appearance. The stains upon her face she 


THE LETTERS, 


341 


washed away; and exchanging her dressing-gown ior a 
fresh one, crepe into bed, for she was very cold and dizzy 
and faint, while, in spite of the wild excitement under 
which she was laboring, there was stealing over her a 
heavy stupor which she could not throw off, and when at 
the usual hour Pierre came to make her fire, he found 
her sleeping so soundly that he went softly out and left 
her alone. An hour later, Margery looked in, but 
Queenie was still asleep, nor did she waken when, as cau- 
tiously as possible, a fire was kindled in the grate to 
make the room more comfortable, for the morning was 
bitterly cold, and the frost lay thickly upon the windows. 
Margery could not see Queenie’s face, as it was turned 
toward the wall, and so she had no suspicion of the 
frightful storm 'which had swept over the young girl dur- 
ing the night. The letters still lay upon the table, and 
Margery saw them there, but did not touch them or 
dream what they contained, and after putting the room 
a little to rights she went quietly out, leaving her friend 
to sleep until the clock struck ten. Then, with a start, 
Queenie awoke, and opening her eyes, looked about her 
with that vague sense of misery and pain we have all 
felt at some period of our lives, when the first thought 
on waking was, “ Why is it I feel so badly ?” 

To Queenie it came very soon why she felt so badly, 
and with a moan she hid her face in her pillow, while 
something like a cry escaped her as she whispered : 

“I thought him so good and true, and now I know 
liim to have been so bad. Pie was false to mother, false 
to Christine, and doubly false to Margery, whom he 
repudiated and disowned. Why did he not bring her 
home like a man when I first told him of her? Why did 
he not say to me, ‘ Queenie, I have donf a great wrong 
wnich many people in this country think of no conse- 
quence, but which, nevertheless, is a sin, for which I am 
torry and would make amends. Little Margery La Rue 
is your sister, and I wish to bring her home to live with 


342 


THE LETTERS. 


you, and share equally with you as if nc jloud hangover 
her birth. Will you let her come, Queenie? Oh, if he 
had done this I sh©uld have taken her so gladly, and 
been spared all this pain. Oh, father, father, you have 
dealt most cruelly with both your children, Margery and 
me ! ” 

Queenie had risen by this time and was making her 
toilet, for she meant to appear as natural as possible to 
Mrs. La Rue and Margery until the moment came for 
her to speak and know every particular of her sister’s 
birth. While she was dressing Margery came to the door, 
but it was locked, and Queenie called to her : 

“ Excuse me, Margie, if I do not let you in. I am not 
quite dressed, but shall come down very soon.” 

She was very white when she did at last go down to 
the dining room, and Margery noticed it and said : “Are 
you sick this morning? You are as pale as ashes, and 
there are dark circles around your eyes. Oh, Queenie, I 
am so sorry for you and thinking only of Phil as the 
jause of Queenie’s pale face and hollow eyes, Margery 
drew her head down upon her arm and smoothed the 
shining hair caressingly. 

Then Queenie came nearer crying that she had since 
she first heard Phil was dead. Grasping Margery’s hand 
she sobbed hysterically for a moment, though no tears 
came to cool her aching eyeballs. 

“I must not give way,” she said, “ for I have a great 
deal to do to-day. Where is your mother, Margie? 1 
must see her. Find her, please, and bring her here ; or 
no, v'e will go into the library. No one will disturb us 
there, and we must be alone. Call your mother, Margie, 
I cannot v^rait.” 

What did it mean, and why was Queenie so strange 
this morning, like one unsettled in her mind? Margie 
asked herself, as she went in quest of her mother, to 
whom she gave Queenie’s message. 

“ Wiiat can she want with me, I wonder?” Mrs. La 


THE LETTERS. 


343 


Rue thought, as she went to the library, where she found 
Reinette curled up in a large easy-chair, which she did 
no more than half fill. 

Her head was leaning against the cushioned back, 
and her face looked very white and wan^ while her eyes 
wore a peculiar expression as they fixed themselves 
on Mrs. La Rue. It was the same chair and the same 
position Queenie had occupied on the occasion of her 
first interview with Phil, who had stood leaning his elbow 
upon the mantel while he looked at her curiously. 
Something brought that day back to Queenie's mind, 
and a sob which was more for the dead Phil than for the 
secret she held escaped her as she bade good-morning to 
Mrs. La Rue, who said : 

“What is it, Petite V' 

This was the name Mrs. La Rue had often applied to 
her during the last few days, and Queenie had liked it 
heretofore, but now she shuddered and shrank away, and 
when Mrs. La Rue laid her hand upon her head and asked 
if it ached, she cried out : 

“ Don't touch me, or come near me. I don’t know 
whether my head aches or not. But my heart is aching 
with a pang to which physical pain is nothing. Christine, 
1 have lost all faith in you — faith in father — faith in 
everything. 1 know the whole novf—you are Tina^ the 
shame-faced, who wrote those letters to my father and 
sent him a lock of your hair 1” 


344 QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH 


CHAPTER XLT 

QUIENIE LEARNS THE TRlr TH. 

HIS was not at all the way in which Queenic 
had intended to commence. She was going 
to come to it gradually, or, as she had ex- 
pressed it to herself, “ hunt Christine down. ’ 
But when she saw her, her hot, passionate temper rose up 
at onee, and she blurted out wliat she knew and tlicn 
waited the result. It was different from what she antici- 
pated. She had expected Christine to crouch at once at 
her feet and, cowering before her, confess her guilt and 
sue for pity and pardon. 

But Christine did nothing of the sort. Quiet and 
gentle as she usually seemed, there was still in her a 
fierce fiery spirit, which, when roused, was something 
akin to the demon which ruled Queenie in her moods. 
When charged with being Christine Bodine she was worn 
in mind and body, and had shown only nervousness and 
agitation, for Queenie had not approached her then as 
she did now. There was no disgust, no hatred, in her 
manner when she said: “You are Christine, my old 
nurse.” She had merely been excited and reproachful; 
but 7i<nv she was angry, and attacked the woman with so 
mucli bitterness, and shrunk away from her with so much 
locthitig that Christine was roused to defend herself, 
thc ugfi at first she was stricken dumb v/hen she heard of 
the letters which she remembered so well, and which 
v/ouid tell what she had kept so long. 

Standing but a few feet from Queenie she gazed 
at her a moment, with a pallid face, on which all 
the worst emotions of her nature were visible. And 
when at last she spoke, it was not in the low, half-de- 
precating, apologetic voice habitual to her, but the tone 
was loud^ and clear, and defiant, in which she said : 



QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH, 345 


“ What letters have you seen, and where did you find 
them ?" 

Her manner, so different from what had been expect- 
ed, made Queenie still more angry, and she replied with 
all the sternness and dignity it ’''as possible for her to 
assume : 

“ It does not matter to you where I found them. It 
is sufficient that I have found them, and know your bare- 
faced treachery, and how you must have deceived my 
mother who trusted you so implicitly, and who died, be- 
lieving you to be good, and honest, and true to her, when 
all the time you were vile and low. You knew when you 
held her dying head upon your bosom what you were 
at heart, and yet you dared lay your hands on her dead 
form, dared care for her baby, and kiss it with lips which 
never shall meet mine again, and then you wrote 
to my father and called yourself his little Tina, as if you 
really supposed he could care for you ! Men like him 
never love women like you, and my father was not 
an exception. He cast you off as we do a worn-out gar- 
ment ; he hated the thoughts of you, hated himself, and 
repented so bitterly. 

“ I see it all now, and understand his remorse on 
ship-board before he died. He was thinking of the past, 
and his thoughts was like a scorpion, stinging him to 
madness and making him long to confess to me the 
wrong he had done. But he could not, weak as he was 
then and worn ; he could not tell me, when he knew 
how much I loved and honored him, but he made 
me promise solemnly to forgive him if I ever found 
it out, and I promised, and I’ll keep the promise, too, 
though just now, I feel hard and bitter toward him, 
and were he living I should rebel against him so 
hotjy and say I never could forgive him, as I never can 
you, whom I loved and respected, but whom I now know 
to be false in everytliing. You have made me believe a 


346 QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH. 


lie, from first to .ast, until I can credit nothing you have 
told me, and am ready to doubt if your name is really 
La Rue, or if that man were your husband/’ 

“ He ivas my husband. J * ever deceived you there,” 
Christine exclaimed. 

“ But he was not Margery’s father,” Reinette contin- 
ued, holding her breath for the answer, which did not 
come at once. 

While she had been talking so rapidly, Christine had 
stood rigid and immovable, with a strange look upon 
her face and a gleam in her eyes such as mad people 
sometimes wear when they are becoming dangerous. 
Queen ie’s sudden and unexpected attack had so con- 
founded and bewildered Christine that she felt her brain 
reeling, and was conscious of a feeling as if she were 
losing control of herself and should not long be respon- 
sible for what she said. When Queenie spoke of M. La 
Rue as one who possibly was not her husband, she 
roused in her own defense and answered ; but at Queenie’s 
next question she hesitated, while the blood came surg- 
ing into her face, which was almost purple in spots, be- 
fore she replied. 

“ No, he was not Margery’s father,” and the woman’s 
voice was hard and pitiless, while the gleam in her eye 
was wilder and more like a maniac as she went on : 

“ Queenie Hetherton, if you drive me too far I may 
say what I shall be sorry for and what you will be sorry 
to hear. The worm will turn when trodden upon, and a 
miserable wretch like me will not be pressed too sorely 
without trying to defend herself. I am wicked and sin- 
ful, it is true ; but in one sense I was not false to Mrs 
Hetherton, and God knows what I have suffered — knows 
of the years of anguish and remorse when I would nav<* 
so gladly undone the past if I could ; but it was too late 
You have found those letters, it seems. Your father wps 
foolish to keep them ; he ought to have burned them, 


QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH. 347 


I did his ; but — but — the that he did not tells me he 

cared more for me than I St,pposed — that in his proud 
heart there was something which bound him to me 
lowly born as I am,” and over Christine's face as she 
said this there came a smile of pleasure and gratification 
in the thought that Frederick Hetherton had kept her 
letters, even though they had failed to produce any re- 
sult. 

The look made Queenie angrier than she had been 
before, for she interpreted it aright, and her pride rose 
up against it. 

“ My father never cared for you,” she said. “It was 
only a fancy, which would never have existed at all if 
you had not tried to attract him.” 

“ It is false ! ” Mrs. La Rue exclaimed, taking a step 
forward, with flashing eyes, before which even Queenie 
quailed. “ It is false. I did not try to attract him at 
first, but he noticed and talked to and flattered me until 
my head my turned and I thought all things possib.e. 
Tlie wrong was on his side. I was not bad nor had a 
thought of badness in my heart, and you, Queenie, o\ 
all others, should not speak to me as you have done. 
Margery did not, and hers is the greater wrong,” 

“Then you have told Margery ! ” Reinette exclaimed, 
and before Mrs. La Rue could answer, Margery herself 
came to the door asking : 

“Did you call me, Queenie? I thought I heard my 
name.” 

“No, no,” Mrs. La Rue almost screamed, as she 
turned like a tigress upon Margery. “ Go away, I tell 
you, go away. I am losing my senses, and with you 
both standing here, and Queenie talking to me as she 
has talked, I shall tell wliat I have sworn not to tell. Go 
away, Margery — go!” 

But Margery did not move except to advance a litde 
farther into the room, where she stood, with a blanched 
cheek and wondering, frightened eyes, gazing first at her 


348 QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH, 


mother Jtnd then at Queenie, whc stretched her arms 
tovrard her and, with quivering lips and a vxioe full of 
unutterable pathos and love, said : 

“You are my sister. Come to me.” 

But Margery did not move, and her face grew whiter 
and more dcath-like, as she whispered to her mother : 

“ What does she mean? Have you told her? Dotsi 
she know it all, and still call me sister V 

“ Hush, Margie. No, she does not know’ it all,” Mrs. 
La Rue replied : and, sinking into a chair and bowing 
her head upon her hands, Margery exclaimed : 

“ Thank God for that ! Oh, Queenie, I don’t know 
what you know’ or how you learned it ; but if you love 
me, if you care for your own happiness, seek to know no 
more. Let the matter end here. If you believe I am 
your sister, love me as such ; I shall be content with 
that.” 

She did not look up, but sat with her head bowed 
down as if with grief or shame. Queenie thought it the 
latter, and crossed the room to where Margery sat, and, 
kneeling beside her, wound both arms around her neck 
and said : 

“ Margie, 1 know you are my father’s child, and I love 
you so dearly that this shall make no difference with me. 
You were not to blame, my darling. You had no part 
in the wrong ; it was my father, may God forgive him, 
and this w’oman, who I am sorry to say is your mother, 
and w’hom I cannot forgive.” 

“This woman!” and Christine’s voice rang out aw- 
fully clear and distinct, as she threw her arm toward the 
two girls. “Say no more of this woman, nor pity Mar- 
gery because she is her mother ; Margery’s parentage is 
as good as yours. Yes, better— better, Queenie Hether- 
ton, for she is Frederick Hetherton’s own child, and 
you — ” 

She did not finish the sentence, for, with a wild 
cry, Margery put Queenie’s clinging arms from her 


QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH 349 

n«5CtC, and rushing to Christine, laid her hand upon her 
lips. 

“ Mother, mother,'* she cried, in a voice of intense 
entreaty, “are you mad ? Have you forgotten your vow, 
your promise to me ? Will you kill Queenie outright ?’’ 

“ Kill hen No. She is not the kind which sucii 
things kill,” Christine answered, fiercely, as she pusiied 
Margery from her, “You ask if I am crazy. Yes, and 
well I may be — I, who have kept this horrible secret for 
so many years. Twenty and more — twenty and more ; 
kept it since you were born. How old are you, Mar- 
g-ery ? Ht)w long since you were born in Rome? 
There’s a buzzing in my brain, and I do not quite 
remember.” 

She was softening a little, and taking advantage of 
this Margery took her hand to lead her from the room, 
saying very gently. “ Poor mother, you are not right 
to-day. Come with me and rest ; and you, Queenie, 
don’t mind anything she may have said. She is not re- 
sponsible when she is this way.” 

“ But I do mind,” Queenie said, stepping before the 
door through which Margery would have passed. “ I do 
mind, and I cannot forget. Christine has said strange 
things to and of me — things she must explain. If you 
are Frederick Hctherton’s own child, as she affirms, and 
were born at Rome, who am IT' 

“I tell you she is not in her right mind, and you are 
not to believe what she says,” Margery replied, trying 
to put Queenie aside, so that she might lead her mother 
from tlie room. 

But Queenie kept her place by the door, against 
which she leaned heavily, while her breath came in quick 
gasps, and iier voice was unsteady as she said aga n, and 
this time to Christine, whose eyes were fastened upon 
her, holding lier by a strange spell she could not resist. 

“Tell me, Christine, as you hope for pardon here* 


350 QUEENIE LEARNS THE TRUTH. 

after when you stand with me face to face with God, is 
Margery my sister ?” 

“ Yes, Margery is your sister,” Mrs. La Rue replied, 
still holding Queenie with her awful eyes. “ Margery is 
your sister — your father’s child.” 

“ My father’s own lawful child?” was the next ques- 
tion, and then Margery cried out, Oh, mother, have 
pity ; remember all it involves !” 

“ Hush, Margery. Be still, and let me know the 
worst,” Reinette said, lifting her hand with the manner 
of one who would be obeyed at any cost. “ Tell me, 
Christine,” she continued, “ Is Margery the lawful child 
of Frederick Hetherton ?” 

“Yes, she is.” 

“And was she born in Rome ?” 

“Yes, she was born in Rome, and her mother was 
Margaret Ferguson,” Christine replied, without the 
slightest quaver in her voice or change of expression in 
her pitiless face. 

Margery had released her hold of the woman’s arm 
and sank upon the floor, where she sat with her knees 
drawn up, her arms encircling them, her head resting 
upon them, and her whole body trembling as with an 
ague chill. She had done all she could to avert the ca- 
lamity. She had tried to save Queenie from the blow 
which she knew would fall so crushingly, and she had 
failed. Her mother was a maniac for the time beino-. 
and was doing what she had sworn never to do. She 
was telling Queenie, and Margery was powerless to pre- 
vent it. 

“ Margaret Ferguson’s daughter !” Queenie repeated 
in a whisper, which, low as it was, sounded distinctl} 
through the room, and told how the young girl’s heart 
was wrung with a mortal fear as she continued : “then 
who am I, and who are you ?” 

For a moment there was a death-like silence in the 
room, for Christine, half-crazed though she was, shrank 


QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH 351 


from declaring what she knew would be the bitterest 
dreg in all the bitter cup. How could she tell the truth 
to that young girl who had been so proud of her blood 
and of her birth, and who even in her pain, when ever)’' 
limb was quivering with nervous dread and excitement, 
stood up so erect before her like one born to command. 
But she must do it now ; she had gone too far to recede — 
had told too much not to tell the whole, and wdien 
Queenie asked again, “who am I, and wheareyou?” 
she answered, I arn your mother but she said it very 
softly and low, for her heart was full of a great pity for 
the girl, over whose face there came that pallid, grayish 
look which comes upon the face of the dying when the 
death pang is hard to bear, and who writhed a moment 
in agony as the insect writhes when put upon the coals. 

She was still looking fixedly at Christine, though 
she did not see her, for there was a blackness before her 
wide-open, staring eyes, and in her ears there was a 
sound like the roar of many waters, when the skies 
overhead are angry and dark. For a second the scene 
around her had vanished away. She did not see Mar- 
gery upon the floor, with her arms still encircling her 
knees and her head bowed upon them — did not see the 
woman standing so near to her, and who had spoken 
those terrible words, but strangely enough saw the far- 
off Indian sea and Phil’s white face as it sank beneath the 
weaves with a wild cry for her upon his lips. Mechani- 
cally she put up her hand to brush that vision away, and 
then the present came back to her with all its horror 
so much wo*'se than the death of Phil had been, and she 
remembered the words Christine had spoken, “I am 
your mother !” 

“ My-my-my-rn-mo-th-er,” she tried to say when she 
could speak, but the words died away upon her white, 
quivering lips in a kind of babbling sound, which was 
succeeded by a hysterical laugh so nearly resembling 
imbecility that Margery looked ud, and a cDld shudder 


552 QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH. 


curdled her blood as she saw the face from which ail 
resemblance to Queenie had vanished, and on which that 
ghastly, meaningless laugh was still visible. 

Struggling to her feet she wound her arm around 
Queenie, saying to her mother, as she did so : 

“You have destroyed her intellect. You have made 
her an imbecile.” 

But Margery was mistaken. Queenie’s mind was not 
destroyed, though for many hours she remained in that 
condition, when her reason seemed to be tottering and 
her white lips had no power to frame the words she 
wished to say. They did not send for a physician, though 
it was Christine's wish to do so ; but Margery said : 

“No, we will not parade this secret before the world. 
I can bring her to herself if any one can, and when I do 
I shall, if possible, persuade her that it is all a delusion 
of her brain — that she did not hear aright. Oh, why did 
you tell her ? Why did you break your promise ? ” 

“ Because I was angry, was crazy, and did not know 
what I said,” Christine replied. “ Her manner toward 
me provoked me more than her words, and roused in me 
a demon which would not be quieted, and so 1 told her 
all ; and I am glad, for now I carry no dreadful secret to 
make my days so full of pain and my nights one long 
black horror. I have told the truth, and can call her my 
daughter now — my child — for she is my own flesh and 
blood — the little black-haired creature which lay in my 
arms and flashed her bright eyes on me — on me — her 
mother.” 

And as she said this, Mrs. La Rue’s face glowed with 
excitement and her eyes shone with all the fire of 
her fresh girlhood when Frederick Hetherton had 
told her she was pretty. Margery had been dear to hei 
as her own life, which she would at any time have given 
for the girl whom she had so wronged : but with hex 
confession there had swept over her a great wave of 
motherly love and tenderness for the poor little giri 


QUEEN IE LEARNS THE TRUTH. 353 

who, in her own room, whither Margery had taken her, 
sat in the great easy-chair, motionless as a stone, with 
her hands lying helplessly upon her lap, and her eyes, 
from which all the sparkle and brightness were gone, 
looking always from the window across the snow-clad 
hills and meadows to the spot where the tall evergreens 
marked the burial-place of the dead. Sometimes Mar- 
gery went and spoke to her. But Queenie did not 
answer until late in the afternoon, when Margery came 
and stood between her and the window. Then she said, 
entreatingly : 

Move away, please. I am looking over to where 
father lies, and tliinking of all he said to me before he 
died. “ Oh, Margie,” and the poor little white face 
quivered and the voice was very sad and piteous, “ Is a 
lie to the dead worse than a lie to the living? I told him 
I would forgive him, whatever it was, and I cannot, I 
cannot, and my heart is so bitter and hard toward him 
and her^ and all the world except you. Oh, Margie, 
Margie, you will not turn against me? You will love 
me just a little, I could not help it, and I love you so 
much. I would have stood hy you in the face of the whole 
world ; stand by me, Margie, will you ?” 

She was looking at Margery with her heavy, pleading 
eyes, and her hands were lifted in supplication as site 
spoke, while her voice told how abased and humiliated 
she felt.- In a moment Margery knelt beside her and 
was covering the hands with tears and kisses as she said : 

Queenie, Queenie, my love, my darling, will I stand by 
you ? Will I love you ? As well ask if the sun will rise 
again as to question my love for you, my sister. It is 
very sweet to call you thus, even though a shadow lies 
over us now ; but that will pass away. There is bright- 
ness beyond and happiness, too — and, Queenie, you must 
lot believe all mother said. She is not in her riglit 
senses. 

She knows it now, and wonders at herseii Yon 


354 QUEENIE LEARNS THE TRUTH, 


may believe I am your sister, but not me rest — the 
part which touched you the closest — because — be- 
cause ” 

“Hush, Margery,” Queenie said, withdrawing her 
hands from Margery and leaning back wearily in her 
chair. “You cannot deceive me. I am that child born 
in Marseilles. Margaret Ferguson was your mother ; 
Christine Bodine is mine.” 

Here a shudder ran through Queenie's frame so long 
and deep that her teeth chattered as if she were seized 
with a chill, and both her hands and lips were purple 
with cold. 

After a pause she continued : 

“ I think the hardest part of all is losing faith in 
father. I cannot forgive him, though I promised him I 
would. If he had left me in obscurity, where I be- 
longed, it would have been better ; but now the fall has 
crushed me utterly. And, Margery, what of you ? How 
came you in that position — you, the lawful daughter of 
the house, while I, was raised to such a giddy height of 
prosperity that in my foolish pride I held myself 
better than the most of mankind? Why was it? Do 
you know ? ” 

“Yes,” Margery replied; “but it will be better for 
mother to tell you.” 

“Mother! Do you call her that still ?” Queenie 
asked, and her voice expressed all the bitter scorn 
which she then felt for the woman who had so injured 
her. 

“Yes, I call her mother still,” Margery answeied, 
softly. “ She is all the mother I have ever known, she 
was more sinned against than sinning. She did not 
understand what she was doing. She is not a bad 
woman. Our father was the most in fault, for she was 
young and ignorant and fcolish enough to believe 
^that she was his wife. She is purer far than many 


CBR/Sr/JVE'S ST OR Y, 


555 


a woman of to-day who stands high in society, and before 
whom the world bows down because of her position.” 

Margery was pleadi ng for the woman who had^one the 
greater wrong to her, and Queenie listened wonderiiigly, 
while there came back to her some words her father had 
said to her when dying: ‘‘If you find your mother, 
remember 1 was more to blame than she.” She had 
found her, but she could not at once forgive her, but she 
said at last : “ Where is she, Margie ? Ask her to come 
up.” 


CHAPTER XLII. 

Christine’s story. 

ARGERY found her mother in the library 
standing by the window, with that gloomy 
abstracted look upon her face which she had 
so often seen there before she learned the 
cause and knew of the keen remorse always gnawing at 
her heart-strings and making her life so wretched. 
Christine had done the worst she could do to Queenie. 
She had told her the truth ; and though a great burden 
was lifted from her, and in one sense she felt freer and 
happier than she had felt in years, she was weighed down 
with a sense of remorse and regret, and filled with a dread 
chf- future. T!int Queenie could ever love, or even 
respect her, was impossible, reared as she had been in a 
very hot-bed of pride and aristocracy, and taught from 
her infancy that such as Christine Bodine were creatures 
of an entirely different grade from herself. 

“She may compel herself to be civil to me,” Christine 
thought, “though I ought not to hope for that ; b' t if 
she only knew how much I love he' and how the 



356 


CHRISTINES STORY, 


alicction, smothered so long, has grown since I confessed 
myself her mother, she would forgive me, perhaps.” 

“Mother,” Margery said just here, and with a start 
Christine turned toward her ; “Mother, Queenie wisnes 
to see you. Will you go to her now?” 

“ Yes,” Mrs. La Rue replied, in a frightened voice, for 
there swept over her a great fear of the girl to whom she 
must tell her story, and grasping Margery’s arm she 
whispered, “Does she hate me? Will she scorn me? 
Will she make me feel that I am but the dust beneath her 
feet? Oh, Margie, go with me. I cannot meet her 
alone. She is so hot, so imperious, so proud, so different 
from you. who have never reproached me, except for 
her sake. Come, Margie, you must go, too ; and if she 
is too hard upon me, say a word for me, will you, 
Margie ?” 

She was like a child shrinking from the rod, and 
Margery’s heart ached for the woman who clung to her 
nervously as they went up the stairs together to Queenie’s 
room. Pierre had been there before them, full of concern 
for his young mistress, whose sudden and strange illness 
he did not understand. 

As they entered, Queenie lifted her eyes to them, but 
made no sign of recognition to Christine, who, like some 
guilty culprit, sank into a chair, where she sat shaking 
in every limb. 

After the first glance at her, Queenie shut her eyes 
and said languidly and slowly, as if speaking were 
wearisome, “I wish you to tell me of Margery and 
myself ; tell me why she was deserted and left to liv^e 
in the Rue St. Honore, while I was taken to Chateau 
des Fleurs and treated as the daughter of the house. 
That is all.” 

While Queenie talked she did not once look at Chris- 
tine, but sat with her eyes closed and her whole attitude 
one of extreme weariness. But she heard Margery as 


CHRISTINAS STORY, 


357 


she was stealing from the room and called her to come 
back. 

“ You must stay with me, Margery,” she said, I want 
to hold your hand so that I can feel there is something 
left when all else slips from me.” 

So Margery came back and sitting down by Queenie 
took one of the hot, feverish hands in hers, and caressed 
It occasionally as Christine told her story. 

“ I must commence at a period prior to Margery’s 
birth,” she said, or I cannot make you understand how 
Ignorant of the world I was when I entered Mrs. 
Hetherton‘s employ, and how innocent and unsusDect- 
Ing too. And when Monsieur began to notice me, and 
speak to me pleasantly, and tell me what a good gir|2-I 
was I thought nothing of it, but redoubled my efforts to 
please him. But when he flattered me and said I was 
more a lady than many a one who wore her diamonds and 
pearls, I was angry and told him he must never speak to 
me like that again ; and he did not, though he was always 
very kind and polite, and I felt intuitively that he 
respected me as one superior to my class, and admired 
me, too, for 1 was pretty then, with ways something lik*t 
Queenie’s.” 

There was a slight sound like a moan from Queenie, 
and Christine continued : 

“ That he could ever think of me for a wife never en- 
tered my brain till 1 sat by my dying mistress and 
heard her say, ‘ T am so glad, for Frederick has wanted a 
child so much, and a daughter will make him very happy, 
and keep me in his mind. Christine, it may be very 
foolish in me, but I do not like to think tho-t Frederick 
will marry again — that another woman will take my 
place, and possibly be loved more then I have been, and 
now that he has a little daughter to care for, there is not 
so much danger of it. He will be satisfied with little 
Margery, he will call her by that name. I have told 


358 


CHRISTINES STORY. 


him so in the letter which you will give to him. Stay 
with him, Christine, and be a comfort to him, you and 
Margery.’ These were nearly the last words she said to 
me, for in less than an hour she was dead, and I was 
aione with her baby in my arms, and the horrible temp- 
tation to which I afterwards yielded kept suggesting it- 
.::lf to me, making me shudder and grow faint as I re- 
flected what a monster I was to harbor such a thought 
for an instant. And' still it recurred to me over and 
over again until it did not seem so very dreadful, and I 
began to consider it seriously, as something which might 
be done. I was not then the simple peasant girl I had 
been when I first entered my mistress’ service. The fa- 
niliarity with which she had treated me, the evident lik- 
ag of my master whom I could influence at times more 
readily even than his wife, the notice I received from 
strangers, especially Americans who frequently mistook 
me for Mrs. Hetherton’s companion, rather than her 
maid, had turned my head and made me discontented 
wdth my position. I wanted to be a lady, and as I sat 
Avith Margery in my arms, the devil whispered to me 
that now was my opportunity to try for something 
higher, and test the power I knew I held over my master. 
He had made one misalliance — he might make another. If 
he was very proud he was very susceptible too — he liked 
to be cared for and petted, and I, who understood him 
so well, would make myself so necessary to him that he 
could not live without me, and would perhaps make me 
his wife at last. Thus I reasoned when suddenly it 
occurred to me that the baby was an obstacle in my way. 
He was passionately fond of children, and a daughter in 
his house would change everything. My mistress had 
said so, and I believed it. With the baby at Chateau des 
Fleurs I could never hope to be more than nurse and 
maid, as I was now. And then Satan told me to hide the 
child for a time, till I saw what I could do with the father 


CHRISTINJS:S STORY, 


359 


It I succeeded I would tell him the truth, and br^i^e his 
anger, for I should still be his wife. If I failed I would 
send his daughter to him with the letter my mistress en- 
trusted to me, and in which she told him of its birth 
and the name she had given it. In any event I 
did not mean to hide Margie forever, but I did not know 
.hen how one sin leads to another or what a hard mas- 
ter is the evil one when you give yourself to him as I 
did, for I resolved at last to do the wicked thing which 
was comparatively easy. Of Margery’s expected birth 
Monsieur knew nothing, for his wife had purposely kept 
it from him to make the surprise and pleasure greater. 
He had not seen her in some months, and would have 
no suspicion of the existence of the little girl. We had 
lived ^^ery quietly in Rome, and few knew or cared for 
the young mother who died alone with me. But 
when she was dead strangers kindly came forward and 
when they heard that Mr. Hetherton was away in Aus- 
tria or Russia, I did not know which, they took the mat- 
ter in hand and buried her in the Protestant burying 
ground, but left me to do what I pleased with the baby, 
which I took to Paris, to an old woman whom I 
had known for years, and to whom I intrusted it, 
telling her it was mine, and hiring her to care for it un- 
til 1 was in a position to claim it. She asked me no 
questions, for the gold I paid her was a conclusive argu- 
ment in my favor and would, I knew, insure kind care 
lor the child. 

“ My next step was to go to Chateau des Fleurs to 
await the coming of my master, for I had written him 
from Rome, telling him of his wife’s death, and my in- 
tention to return to the Chateau with whatever effects 
she lef in my care. The letter was some time :n finding 
him ; but on its receipt, he hastened home at once, and 
for a day or two seemed crushed with grief and remorse. 
Then for a short time he drank hard and deeply, and 
kept his room, where bottle after bottle of wine and 


360 


CHRISTJNE^S STORY. 


brandy was sent, and in his drunkenness he was more 
like a brute than a man. 

“This drunken revel was succeeded by an illness of 
several weeJts’ duration, during which I nursed him with 
the utmost care, playing my part so well that the result 
came soonei than I anticipated, but was not what I 
desired. I must be his wife or nothing, and at last 
weakened bovTily and mentally by disease and the 
brandy he drank in so large quantities he promised to 
make me his wife on condition that I kept it a secret 
until he chose to tell of it himself. As there was no Pro- 
testant clerg)^man near Chateau des Fleurs he said we 
would marry ourselves, and he made me believe that by 
joining hands and promising to take each other for man 
and wife after the manner of the English Prayer Book, 
we should really become so. ‘ Such things were common 
in America,’ he said, ‘ when a priest was not easy cf 
access.’ Of course, when it was convenient this private 
ceremony, though perfectly legal, must be repeated in 
public, and this he swore solemnly should be done, 
and I trusted him and went blind-folded to my ruin, 
but innocent — oh, Queenie, as innocent as you are 
to-day.’’ 

“Yes,” Queenie rejoined, with a look of unutter- 
able anguish upon her face, for novv she had lost all 
faith in and respect for her father, but as yet had 
no relenting towards the poor deceived mother. “ Yes, 
go on.” 

Christine flushed a little as she went on rapidly : “ I 
believe I was his wife and wished to remain at the Chateau, 
but he would not hear to me. ‘ We must go to Marseilles, 
he said, and thither he went, and he hired a suite of rooms 
for me, but did not remain there himself, though he came 
often to see me, and treated me with kindness and con- 
sideration, but did not bring the clergyman as he had 
promised to do. ‘ He had not met one of the right sort/ 


CHRISTJNE'S STORY. 


361 


he said, and there was no haste as I was really his wife. 
And so matters went on until a great fear took possession 
of me that all was not right, and then you were born, and 
when you were three or four weeks old he came to me 
and seemed to love you so much, and was so kind to me 
that I begged him on my knees to acknowledge me to 
the world, and take me with him to Chateau des Fleurs. 
Then it was that he undeceived me and told me how I 
had been duped, and did it as coolly as if to ruin an 
innocent girl was nothing but pastime for gentlemen like 
him, and he laughed at me for taking it as I did, for at 
first I raved like a mad woman, but it did no good. 

“ ‘ Christine,’ he said, ‘ you must be very weak to sup- 
pose fora moment that I was in earnest, or that you could 
ever live at Chateau des Fleurs as other than a servant. 
Men of my stamp do not marry girls like you, or in fact 
marry at all in our sober senses. I will admit that I am 
far more to blame than you, but you can never be my 
wife, though I will care for the child. It is lonely at 
Chateau des Fleurs ; a baby’s voice and baby’s prattle 
will make it more endurable. I have wanted a child so 
much, and if Margaret had left me one I should never 
have done what I have.’ 

You will not believe me if I tell you that when I 
heard this my first impulse was to fall at his feet and tell 
him of the little girl in Paris, thoughts of whom had 
haunted me continually, making me sometimes cry out 
with pain and remorse. But I had gone too far to con- 
fess. He would never have forgiven me, and all my 
ambitious dreams for my own child would have come to 
naught. I had no hope for myself ; his imperious man- 
ner and cold, disdainful words crushed all that ; but 
there arose in me an intense desire to you a lady, and 
I begged him to take you, w^hatever he might do with 
me, and he consented at last, but bade me stay where I 
was until I heard from him again. He wished to make 
some change in his household, he said, for if he took you 

16 


362 


CHRISTINES STORY. 


home it would be as the child of his dead wife. I was 
only the nurse, who might or might not be retained ; it 
would depend upon myself. 

“Then he left me, and I knew T was no more to him 
than a cast-off garment, of which he was tired, and that 
in whatever arrangements he might make, no thought 
for me or my comfort would actuate him ; and in my 
anguish 1 felt that ray punishment was greater than I 
could bear, and I even thought to kill myself and you 
too. But a thought of little Margery prevented me 
Somebody must care for her, and so I lived on and 
waited and hoped the time might come when I could re- 
store her to her rights. 

“ On quitting Marseilles your father went to Chateau 
des Fleurs, and, on one pretext or another, dismissed all 
the servants in his employ, filling their places with 
strangers, who knew nothing of his past life, and who 
readily believed him when he told them of his wife who 
had died in Rome, and of his little daughter whom he 
was soon to bring home. A huge nursery, which com- 
municated with his apartments, was fitted up with every 
possible luxury. And then he bade me come ; and I 
took you to him as his lawful child, while I was only 
the head nurse — for he hired another woman to look 
after you, giving me the post of looking after her. 

“ I remember so well the day I took you to the Cha- 
teau and waited for his coming, but waited in vain, for 
though he knew I was in the house, he kept aloof from 
me and took his dinner, and read his paper, and smoked 
his cigar, and then at last he sauntered into the nursery 
with that air of elegant indifference and superiority so 
natural to him. I had not seen him since his visit to 
Marseilles, when you were a few weeks old ; but he 
simply bade me good-evening, and asked if I had found 
everything in readiness. Then he walked up to the 
cradle, and when you raised your little hands toward 
him as if asking him to take you, he lifted you in his 


CHRISTINE'S STORY. 


363 


arms, kissed your lips, and aying your head upon his 
shoulder said: ‘My daughter, try heiress, Reinette 
Hetherton.’ 

“ I knew he had adopted you as his own. But I was 
only your hired nurse, who was entitled to consideration 
in the household because I had been the trusted maid of 
his wife. This raised me somewhat above my fellow- 
servants, who treated me with a great deal of respect, 
and asked me many questions concerning my late mis- 
tress and Mr. Hetherton, who puzzled them with his cold, 
quiet, haughty manner. 

“ With your advent at the Chateau all his former habits 
were changed, and he seldom left home except to go to 
Paris, where he never stayed more than a day or two. 
All his old associates were dropped, and few ever came 
to see him. And yet he did not seem to be lonely, so 
great was his love for you. From the moment he took 
you in his arms and kissed you, he was perfectly devoted 
to you, and had you brought to him in the library every 
night after his dinner was over. I generally took you to 
him myself, but he never noticed me by a word or look, 
and this so enraged me that I spoke out to him at last, 
and threatened to go away and take you with me, if he 
continued to treat me with so much contempt. 

“‘You can do so to-morrow, if you like, I shall be 
glad to have you,’ was his reply, and I knew that he 
meant it. 

“ But my desire to see you a lady was stronger than 
my resentment, and so 1 stayed, content to be trodden 
down, if by that means you might rise. But those foolish 
words of mine sealed my fate, for from that time I think he 
began to plan how to be rid of me. The sight of me was 
distasteful to him, and when you were about a year and 
a half old, we had a bitter quarrel, which ended in a linal 
separation ; but I could not take you from all the luxury 
with which you were surrounded, and when he offe *ed 
to settle up an me a certain sum of money if I would go 


3^4 


CHRISTINES STORY. 


away quietly, and promise solemnly, never to come near 
you, or let you know that I was your mother, I con- 
sented, and left you at Chateau des Fleurs the acknow 
ledg’ed and petted child of the house. 

“ How well I remember you, Queenie, as I saw you for 
the last time in your embroidered white dress, with coral 
clasps at your neck, and your hands fu 11 of flowers, 
which you offered to me when I bent over you, crying as 
if my heart would break. You were so beautiful and 
bright, and 1 loved you so much, that for a moment I 
was tempted to break my vow, and, defying my cruel 
master, publish to the whole world my wrongs, and, if 
possible, carry you off in triumph. But when I remem- 
bered the home to which I must take you, and how 
different all your future life would be, I abandoned the 
project, and left you there in the sunshine, with wealth 
and luxury all around you, and went out into the 
darkness, where only toil and poverty awaited me, with 
a constant sense of my wrong and the sin 1 had commit- 
ted in hiding Margery.” 

Here Christine paused, and with closed eyes and 
clenched fists seemed to be living over again the scenes 
she had described, while Reinette raised herself from her 
reclining position in the chair, and winding her arms 
tightly around Margery’s neck, rested her cheek upon 
the bowed head, and said : 

“Well, Christine, you have let me see one side of the 
picture, have shown me myself, surrounded with riches 
and love, and sunshine and flowers, to which I had no 
right. Now show me the other side ; take me to the 
garret where Margie, to whom belonged the sunshine 
and the flowers, Avas struggling with cold and hunger, 
and shrinking it may be, from harsh words and cruel 

blOAVS.” 

“No, Queenie, never,” Margery exclaimed. “Never 
hunger or cold or blows or harsh words. The woman 
who cared for me was always kind, and my childhood 


CHRISTINE* S STORY. 


365 


was a happy one, for I knew no other life, and ..he chil- 
dren of poverty are as much pleased with a toy which 
costs a penny as are the children of the rich with one 
which costs many francs ; and after mother came and 
took me to live with her, I was very happy, for if she 
defrauded me of my birthright, she made it up in love 
and tender care.” 

Margery’s generous defense of the woman who had 
wronged her so deeply, touched Queenie, and her voice 
was softer and her manner less imperious as she contin 
ued : “ I know she loved you, Margie — know she has 

been kind to you, and I thank her for it ; but I wish to 
hear about it all the same — wish to know where you 
lived, and how, after she left Chateau des Fleurs and 
went back to you. Tell roe, please,” and she turned to 
Christine : “tell me of Margie when she was a baby.” 

Christine was quick to detect the change in Queenie’s 
voice and manner, and her face was brighter as she 
replied : “ After I left you I went to Paris, to Florine’s 
apartments, where I found a healthy, beautiful child, 
whom no one could see and not love. My heart was 
very sore and full of a great longing for my own baby 
girl left at Chateau des Fleurs, and when she toddled to 
my side and put up her sweet lips to be kissed, as was a 
habit of hers, I took her in my arms and into my heart 
and made a solemn vow to be true to her and never let 
her feel the want of a mother’s love. I told her to call 
me mamma, and the name came prettily from her lips. 

I was younger and better looking than Florine, and she 
took to me readily, and slept in my arms and cried when 
I left her to look for lodgings and employment. I found 
both : the first with a hair-dresser in Rue de Richelieu, 
and the second on the upper floor of number — Rue St. 
Honore, where you came to us one day and changed 
Margery’s whole life. Had I chpsen to use the money 
your father paid me annually, we might have lived in 
much better style, but I shrank from touching more of 


366 


CBRJSTINE^S STORY, 


it than it was absolutely necessary, and took pleasure in 
supporting her by my own hard labor. 1 would lay the 
money by for her until she married, if she ever did, or 
until she needed it more, I thought ; and should she 
marry now she would not go empty-handed to her hus- 
band, for there are many thousand dollars invested for 
her in France. 

“How I toiled and slaved for her, and how I loved her 
as time went on and she grew more and more into my 
heart ; loved her so much, in fact, that your image grad- 
ually began to fade, and I could think of you without a 
pang. I saw you occasionally — once in the grounds at 
the Chateau, where I came upon you with your nurse, 
and several times in the streets of Paris, after your father 
brought you there. I used to take Margery out upon 
the Champs d’Elysees on fine afternoons when the streets 
were full of people driving out to the Bois, and hiring a 
chair I would hold her in my lap and watch for your 
father to pass. Though not the most showy — for his 
taste was too good for that — Mr. Hctherton’s turn-out 
was the most elegant and probably the most expensive 
of all the private carriages in Paris, while his splendid 
thoroughbreds were the talk of the city. I always 
watched anxiously for him, and when he appeared, sit- 
ting up so proud and erect, with that look of haughty 
indifference and selfishness on his face, and with you be- 
side him on the cushions, clad in dainty apparel, I used 
to hold little Margery tightly to my heart and bite my 
lips till the blood almost forced itself through the skin, 
so fearful was I lest I should shriek out the truth so 
loudly that he would hear it above the roll of the wheels 
and the tramp of the horses’ hoofs. Something impelled 
me strongly to hold you high in my arms, and, making 
him see you, say to him : ‘ Th.s is your lawful daughter 
the child of your wife who died in Rome. Her place is 
there beside you, and not far up in the tenement house 
on the Rue St. Honore.' 


CHFISTINE\S STOR F. 


367 


“ But it was too late now to confess, so I let you go 
by in all your splendor, and if at night I k.ssed Margery 
more tenderly than usual and held her closer to me as 1 
undressed her for bed, it was by way of atonement for 
the great wrong I was doing her. 

“ It was about this time that I fell in with Gustave La 
Rue, who offered me marriage. He was a good-natured 
easy-going man, who would never trouble me much Avith 
Questions concerning the past, provided I made his home 
.comfortable and his life easy, and so I married him, and 
gave Margery his name, and said to strangers that she 
was his daughter. He was fond of children and always 
kind to her, and never pressed me hard with regard to 
her parentage but once, and then I swore to him that she 
was not my child ; but he did not believe me, though he 
never suspected the truth." 

“ And when I went to your room in the Rue St. Honore, 
you knew 1 was Margery’s sister?" Queenie said; and 
Christine replied : 

“Yes, and kissed the chair you sat upon, and in my 
poor blind way thanked God for sending you there, and 
thanked him again when, through your influence, Margery 
was placed at the same school with you, and her education 
paid for by the man who never suspected the truth, or 
even knew that the little girl in whom his daughter was 
so interested was anything to me until her education was 
finished and she was a grown young lady, then he learned 
it accidentally and was very angry and bade me keep you 
apart, lest in some way you should learn who I was. 

“It was then that the idea of emigrating to America 
was suggested to my mind by some ladies for Avhom 
Margery had worked, and who gave such glowing 
accounts of the country and the prospects for dressmak- 
ing that I began to consider the matter seriously, and 
finally’- made up rny mind to go, without communicating 
with Mr. Hetherton upon the subject. I wrote him, how- 


368 


CHRISTINE^S STORY. 


ever, from Oak Bluffs, and directed to the old address .n 
Paris, but possibly he never received my letter.” 

“ Yes, he did ; I am sure he did,” Queenie exclaimed. 

There were letters forwarded to him at Liverpool, and 
one of them made him very angry, Pierre told me. lie 
was present when papa read it, and after that he was very 
nervous and excited, and suggested to me that we give up 
America and go back to Paris. But I would not listen. 
I made him come, and he died on the voyage, and you 
were the cause of his death. He dreaded meeting you 
here, and the dread and the remorse killed him. Oh, 
papa — I can see him so plain as his eyes followed me, 
and he made me promise to forgive him if something 
ever came to my knowledge, and I promised ; but it is so 
hard. Oh, Margie, if it were not for you, I could not 
keep my promise, and I don’t know as I can at all, he 
was so bad — if all she says is true. It would have been 
better to have left me in Marseilles where I was born — 
left me to poverty and want — for then I should have 
known nothing better, and might have been as happy as 
the girls I have seen dancing on the street for the amuse- 
ment of the crowd. But now, to fall so far — it makes me 
dizzy, and sick, and dazed, and there’s a buzzing in my 
head, and a feeling as if I were crazed and could not 
understand it at all.” 

She was very white, with a drawn look about her lips, 
which alarmed Margery, who bent over her and said : 

“ You have heard enough. There can be nothing 
more to tell which will interest you. Mother must go 
out now, and leave you to rest.” 

“Yes, yes, Margie ; tell her to go ; I am so tired and 
sick,” Queenie whispered, and without a word Christine 
left the room, and the two girls were alone. 


THE SISTERS. 


369 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


THE SISTERS. 



OR a moment Queenie sat with her head drop- 
vt. X. jjgj. ^ygg closed ; then, opening them 

suddenly and fixing them upon Margery, who 
knelt beside her, she said, ^‘It is very dread- 
ful, Margie, and I feel as if turned into stone. Oh, if 
I could cry ; but I cannot, even though 1 know that 
everything is gone from me that I loved the most. Phil 
is dead — Phil, who would have stood by me even in this 
disgrace. He would have come to me and said, ‘Dear 
little Queenie, I love you just the san^, and want you 
for my wife,’ and with him I might in time have been 
happy ; but now there is nothing left to me, neither 
lover, friends, nor name, and that last hurts the worst 
and makes me so desolate ; no name, no friends, not a 
single relative in the world except — except that woman, 
and she is my mother !” 

Queenie said the last word with a choking sob, while 
Margery kissed and rubbed her hands which were cold 
as ice and lay helplessly upon her lap. 

“You forget that you have me — forget that I am 
your sister — that whatever sorrow comes to you 
must be shared by me,” Margery said, and Queenie 
replied, “No, I don t forget that. It is the only thing 
which keeps me from dying outright. Oh, Margie, 
you do not know how foolishly proud I was when 
I believed myself Queenie Hetherton — proud of my posi- 
tion, proud of my blood. And — I will confess it all to you 
who stand just where I thought I stood, I was so 
wicked and so proud that I rebelled against my mother’s 
family — rebelled against the Fergusons, and though I 
tried to do my duty and tried to be kind and friendly, 


THE SISTERS. 


$ 7 ^ 

especially to grandma, I never came in contact with her^ 
or with any of Uncle Tom’s family, that I did not feel 
the little shivers run over me, and a shrinking away 
from them and their manner of speaking and acting. J 
could not help this feeling, though I hated myself cordi* 
ally for it, and told myself many times that I was no 
better than they, and still in my heart I fancied 1 was 
infinitely their superior — /, who had no right to be born. 
Once I knelt in the room I supposed was my mother’s, 
and prayed God to make me like the woman below 
stairs, whom I thought so coarse and vulgar — asked Him 
to humble me in any way, if that was what I needed to 
subdue my pride, but little did I dream the time would 
come when that prayer would be so terribly answered — 
when I would give my life to know the Fergusons were 
mine as I then believed them to be. Oh, if I could have 
the old days back again ; if I could waken from this and 
find it a dream, but I never can. I am not Reinette 
Hetherton, I am nobody. I have neither name, nor 
friends, nor position, nor home; oh Margie, Margie, I 
had not thought of that before ; ” and Queenie bounded 
to her feet so suddenly that Margery was thrown back- 
ward upon the floor, where she sat staring blankly at 
the girl who it seemed to her had actually lost her 
mind. 

She was walking rapidly across the floor, beating the 
air with her hands. There were blood-red spots on her 
cheeks, and her eyes shone with a strange, unnatural 
light as they flashed first upon one object, and then upon 
another, and finally rested upon Margery, before whom 
ehe stopped and said in a whisper : 

Do not you know it ? Do not you see that I am an 
outcast, a beggar, a trespasser where I have no claim? 
Frederick Hetherton’s unlawful child has no right to a 
penny of his money. You are his heiress ; you are his 
daughter, and I only an intruder, who hare lived for 


THE SISTERS, 


371 


years on what was not my own, ar u have, perhaps, some- 
times felt that I was very good to give to you what was 
already yours, for you are Miss Hetherton, and / am 
Reinette — Bodine !” 

Her lips quivered as she repeated the name, and lier 
whole manner showed how hateful was the sound of it 
to her. But Margery scarcely noticed that, so intent 
was she on what had gone before. Springing to her 
feet, and winding her arm around Queenie, she held her 
fast, while she said : 

“ What folly is this ! What injustice to me ! I do 
not pretend not to understand you, for I do. You are 
excited now, and insane enough to think that you have 
no right to Frederick Hetherton’s money because you 
are the child of Christine Bodine, whom you so despise. 
She is not a bad woman ; the badness was on the other 
side. That ceremony which she thought true was true 
to her and in the sight of Heaven, so far as she was 
concerned, though it might not stand the test of the 
law. But in either case you are father’s child as 
much as I am, and it was his wish that you should be his 
heir. He knew nothing of me^ never dreamed of my ex- 
istence, and, Queenie, the world need not know what v/e 
do. I would far rather remain Margaret La Rue for- 
ever than meet what we must meet should the truth be 
known. Stay as you are, here in your home, for ir is 
yours, and, if you like, I will stay with you, and the 
secret of your birth shall be buried forever.” 

“ No, Margie,” Queenie said, disengaging herself 
from her sister’s embrace. “ I have no right here, and I 
cannot stay ; not a penny of all my father’s wealth is 
mine. You say truly that he did not dream of your 
existence ; but if he had — if at the last moment of his life 
he had known that somewhere in the world there was a 
daughter lawfully his own, he would have repudiated 
me, and flown to you. 

“ I knew him. and you did not, and you cannot under- 


372 


THE SISTERS, 


stand how proud he was. I knew he was more to 
blame than Christine if she tells the truth, and I can never 
forgive him, even if I did promise to do so, and I can 
never forgive her for hiding you, whom father would 
liave loved so much, while I should never have been born. 

“And yet he loved me, I am sure ; but, had he known 
of you, all would have been changed, just as T shall 
change it now. He would have sent me away — not 
penniless, it was not his nature to do that ; he provided 
for Christine, and would have made provision for me — 
but sent me from him just the same and taken his lawful 
daugliter home, and after you are established here as 
Miss Hetherton, I shall go away — where, I do not know 
— but somewhere in the world there is a place for Pierre 
and me, and we shall go together. I cannot stay here 
with that mark upon me. I feel it now burning into my 
hesh, and know it is written all over me in letters of fire, 
which ail the waters in the world cannot wash out. 
Truly, the sins of the parents are visited upon the 
children, and I am suffering so terribly — oh, Margie, it 
does ache so hard, so hard ! ” and with a gasping sob 
Queenie sank into her chair, where she sat writhing like 
(.me in agony. 

For a moment Margery regarded her intently, then 
kneeling before her again and taking the hot, quivering 
hands in hers said to her ; “ Queenie, do you think I have 
forgotten the day when you came to me, a little, lonely 
girl, clad in garments so coarse that just to have worn 
them a moment would have roughened the delicate skin 
of one who, like you, had known only the scarlet, and 
ermine, and purple of life. And yet you did not shrink 
from me. You looked into my eyes with a look I have 
ne\er forgotten. You touched my soiled hands with 
your soft, white, dimpled fingers, and the touch lingers 
there yet. You took the scarlet and ermine from your 
shoulders and put them upon me, and brought down 


THE SISTERS, 


373 


heavsn to me as nearly as it can be brought to us here 
upon earth. And now, when this great sorrow has comt 
upon you, when it may be that I stand in the place you 
have held so long, wnen the scarlet and ermine are mine, 
will you not let me give it back to you as you once gave 
it to me, or at least share it with me — that is, supposing 
mother’s statement is proved to be true?” 

“ Proved to be true !” Queenie said. What do you 
mean by that ?” 

“ I mean this,” Margery replied, “ The world will not 
accept the story as readily as you have done. There will 
have to be proof, I think, that / was born at Rome and 
that Margaret Ferguson was my mother.” 

“ you doubt it, Margie ?” Queenie asked, fixing her 
eyes searchingly upon her sister, who at last slowly 
answered, No.” 

“ Neither do I,” was Queenie’s quick rejoinder. I 
know it is true — know I am Christine’s daughter by the re- 
semblance I bear to her, just as I know you are a Fergu- 
son by the blue in your eyes and the gold<="n hue of your 
hair, so like them all, so like to Phil. Oh, Phil ! if I 
could go to him and tell him of my pain.” 

There was silence a few moments between the two 
girls nd it was Queenie who spoke first again. 

“ Go away now, Margie. My head is not quite 
straigi Go, and leave me awhile to myself.” 

Maigcry obeyed, thinking that Queenie wished to 
rest, but such was not her intention, and no sooner was 
she alone than she arose, and, bolting her door, went to 
her writing-desk, and taking out several sheets of paper 
began to write the story which Christine had told her. 
This done, she took the three letters which she had found 
among her father’s papers, signed “Tina,” and inclosing 
the whole in an envelope, directed it to Mr. Beresford. 
Then, ringing her bell, she asked that Pierre should be 
sent to her. The old man obeyed the summons at once, 
for he was very anxious about his young mistress aid 


374 


THE SISTERS. 


the sickness which had come so suddenly upon her. Step, 
ping into the room, he made his bow, and then stocd be- 
fore her in his usual attitude of deference and respect, his 
head bent forward and his hands clasped, awaiting her 
orders. 

“Sit down, P.erre,” Queenie said. “You need not 
stand before me now. I have something to tell you, and 
the sooner I teli it, the better. A dreadfui thing has 
come to light — a dreadful wrong been done to Margery. 
She is not Miss La Rue. She is that baby born at Rome. 
She is Margaret Ferguson’s daughter, and I am — am — 
nobody! My father was Frederick Hetherton, and ni> 
mother is Christine Bodine, and they were never legally 
married. Do you understand me, Pierre?” 

He did understand her, and the shock made him reel 
forward and grasp the back of a chair, to which he held, 
while he stood staring at his mistress as if to assure him- 
self of her sanity. 

“7/ is irue^'* she continued, as she met his questioning 
look of wonder, and then, very rapidly, she told him how 
it had come to her knowledge, and what she meant to do. 

“ I will never believe it,” was Pierre’s emphatic reply, 
’when he could speak at all. “ It is a lie she told, the bad 
woman.” 

And yet in Pierre’s heart there was a growing fear 
that what he had heard might be true, but even if it 
were, it should make no difference with him. He would 
stand by Queenie against the whole world. Where she 
went he would go, where she died, he wouiU die, her 
faithful slave to the last. It did not matter to him 
whether she were a Hetherton or a Bodine, she was his 
sovereign, his queen, and he told her so, with many 
gestures and ejaculations, some of which were far from 
being complimentarv to femme Bodhief as he called 
her. 

“I knew I was sure of you,” Queenie said to him 
“ and a/ter a little we will go away from here and find a 


THE SISTERS. 


375 

home somei/^here, and I shall learn to work and take caro 
of myself, £ndyou, too, if necessary.” 

Pierre shrugged his shoulders significantly at the idea 
of being taken care of by this little girl who had been 
reared so tenderly. Queenie noticed the gesture, though 
she did not seem to, and went on : 

“ I have written to Mr. Beresford, who will know just 
what to do, and early to-morrow morning you must take 
it to him. Say nothing to Miss Margery or any one, 
but come to my door, quietly, as soon as you are up. I 
shall be waiting for you. And now go : it is getting late^ 
and I am very tired.” 

Pierre obeyed and left her in a most bewildered state 
of mind, scarcely knowing what he had heard, and not 
at all able to realize its import. True to his promise, he 
was at Queenie’s door the next morning before either 
Margery or her mother were astir, and received the pack- 
age for Mr. Beresford, and a second and smaller one foi 
Grandma Ferguson. This last Queenie had written after 
Peirre left her the previous night, and she bade him 
deliver it. 

‘‘ There will be no answer to either ; at least none for 
you,” slie said, and with a nod that he understood, 
Pierre hastened away to throw the bomb-shell at the feet 
of Mr. B^'t-esfo^-d and Grandma Ferguson. 


316 


THE EXPLOSION. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE EXPLOSION. 

ARLY as it was, Mr. Berestord was at his 
office. He had an important suit pending in 
the court which involved much thought and 
research, and ne was hunting up certain 
points bearing upon it wiien Pierre came in, and with a 
simple ^^Bon jour., monsieur^' laid the package upon the 
table and departed in the direction of Grandma Fer- 
guson’s. Mr. Beresford recognized Queenie’s hand- 
writing, and thinking she had probably sent him some 
business papers of her father’s, which she had over- 
looked, he laid it aside for a time and went on with his 
own matters, so that it was an hour or more, and the 
one-horse sleigh which Grandma Ferguson had hired to 
carry her to Hetherton Place had driven rapidly past the 
door before he took the package in his hand and opened 
it. The three yellow, time-wern letters which Queenie 
had inclosed first met his eye, and he examined them 
curiously, noting that they were dated in Marseilles 
many years ago ; but as they were written in French it 
would take him some time to decipher them, so he put 
them down and took up Queenie’s letter, which he read 
tnruugh rapidly, feeling when it was finished so be- 
numbed and bewildered that he walked several times 
acioss the floor of his office, and then went out into the 
open air to shake off the nightmare which oppressed his 
faculties and made his brain so dizzy. Then, returning 
to the letter, he read it again, weighing carefully every 
word, and jumping at conclusions, rejecting this state- 
ment as improbable, and that as impossible and saying 
to himself as Pierre had done. I do not believe it.’ 



THE EXPLOSION, 


377 


He had long ago suspected that Queenie and Margery 
might be sisters, but not in this way. Anon, however, a 
doubt stole into his mind that it might be true, and this 
doubt was succeeded by another, and another, until 
there were great drops of sweat upon the lawyer’s face, 
and an intense pity in his heart as he thought of Queenie 
and all she would have to suffer. 

“ Poor little Queenie ; so proud and so high-spirited ; 
she cannot bear it, and I shall do all I can to prove the 
story false,” he said ; and then suddenly there swept 
over him another thought which made him reel in his 
chair, while the sweat-drops on his forehead and about 
his lips grew larger and thicker. “ If the tale were true, 
then Margery was the daughter of the house ; Margery 
W'as Miss Hetherton, of Hetherton Place, and ” 

He did not allow himself to think any further, but, 
throwing out his hands, with a fierce gesture, he ex- 
claimed, “ Get thee gone, Satan ! Is this a time to 
indulge in low, mean, selfish feelings? Were Margery 
a thousand times a Hetherton, she would be no sweeter 
or lovelier than she has seemed to me as Margery La Rue, 
nor will Queenie be one whit the worse for this stain 
upon her birth, if stain there be, which I doubt ; at all 
events I will leave no stone unturned to prove the truth 
or falsity of this Bodine woman’s statement. If I could 
only read her letters I might find something on which to 
base a conclusion.” 

Taking up the letter which bore date tne furthest 
back, he began to decipher it slowly and carefully, suc- 
ceeding better than he had anticipated, and when it was 
finished he possessed a pretty accurate knowledge cf its 
contents. Then he took the second and the third, and 
went through with them both, while the conviction 
deepened in his mind that tliere was son^ething in the 
story which would bear investigation. 

“ I must see Queenie at once,” he said, “and Mrs. La 
Rue also, and hear from her if she has any other proof to 


378 


THE EXPLOSION. 


:>ffer, than her mere statement and these letters, which 
she may or may not have written.” 

Ordering his horse and giving some directions to his 
clerk in case clients called, he was soon riding rapidly 
toward Hetherton Place where Grandma Ferguson had 
been for more than an hour. Pierre had found the good 
woman seated at her breakfast-table, arrayed in her usual 
morning costume, a short, wine-colored stuff skirt, and 
a loose woolen sacque, with no collar on her neck or cap 
on her head. But her white hair was combed smoothly 
back and twisted into a little knot, and her face shone 
with content and satisfaction as she drank her coffee 
from her saucer or soaked her fried cake in it. 

With his usual polite bow, Pierre handed the package 
to her, and then, departed without a word. 

“ Mrs. John Ferguson, Present,” grandma read aloud. 
“ What did Rennet want to put prescfit on for, I wonder, 
and how finefied she writes. I don’t believe 1 can make 
it out at all, the letters are so small and Frenchy,” and 
tearing off the envelope she tried in vain to decipher the 
contents of the letter. 

Queenie had written it under great excitement, and 
her handwriting, always puzzling to grandma, was more 
illegible than usual. 

“ Here, Axie, read it for me ; 'taiii’t likely there’s any 
secret,” grandma said, and taking the paper in her hands, 
Axie began to read what Queenie had written. 

It was as follows : 

“ Dear Grandma : 

“You must let me call you that just this once, though 
you are not my grandmother. A dreadful thing has been 
done, and kept secret until yesterday, when I found it out, 
and it almost killed me. I am 7iot the baby born at Rome 
Margery is that baby ; Margery is your grandchild, ant 
I am nobody. I am the daughter of Frederick Hethertoi 
and Mrs. La Rue, who Avas Christine Bodine, my oU 


THE EXPLOSION. 


379 


nurse. She has told me all tnc deception, and her hiding 
Margery from her father, who did not know ol her 
existence. It is terrible — and I was so proud and hot- 
tempered, and so bad to you sometimes, and now I’d give 
the world if you were really my grandmother. 

“ Come as soon as you can and see Margery and 
question Mrs. La Rue yourself. “ Queenie.” 

“ Not her gra'ma ! I not her gra’ma ! Who then is 
her gra’ma, I’d like to know?” Grandma Ferguson 
exclaimed, when Axie read the first lines of the letter. 

But Axie did not answer. Her quick eye had gone 
rapidl)^ on, and with an ejaculation of surprise, she read 
what Queenie had written, while her mistress turned 
white as ashes, and could only whisper her incredulity. 

Ren7i£t not ming ! not Margery’s child! No, no, I 
cannot believe that,” she said, and a sense of pain began 
to rise in her heart at the thought of losing in this way 
the little dark-eyed girl who had crept into her love in 
spite of her wilful, imperious ways. Read it again, 
Axie,” she continued ; “You did not get it right before. 
Rennet never said no such thing, unless she’s crazy. 
Yes, that’s it,” and grandma’s face brightened, and hei 
voice was more cheery. “Fretting for Phil has driven 
her out of her mind. She hain’t slep’, nor cried, nor et 
sence he died. I shall go over there at once, and do you 
run as fast as you can to the livery after a hoss and sleigh.’' 

And so within an hour after Pierre delivered 
Queenie’s letter to Grandma Ferguson she was alighting 
at the door of Hetherton Place. Margery, who knew 
nothing of Pierre’s journey to the village, opened the 
door to the old lady, whose first exclamation was : 

“ How is she, and when did the spell come on her?” 

“ Do you mean Reinette, and how did you know any- 
thing ailed her?” Margery asked, and grandma replied ; 

“How do I know ? Didn’t that Frenchman fetch me 
a letter from her this mornin’, in which she said she 
wasn’t my granddarter, and that ” 


380 


THE EXPLOSION, 


Here grandma stopped, struck by the likeness to her 
daughter which had so impressed her the first time she 
saw Margery. She had paid no attention to the assertion 
in Reinette’s letter that Margery was her granddaughter, 
but now, as she looked into the blue eyes confronting 
her so steadily, she saw there something which awoke 
within her a strange feeling of kinship and love, and she 
continued with a faltering voice: “She said that you 
was Margaret’s girl. Be you Margery ? Be you my 
granddarter ?” 

“ I don’t know, the story seems so incredible," Mar- 
gery replied, but she took the hands extended toward 
her in her own, and covered them with kisses, as she 
continued : “If I am Margery Hetherton, it is very hard 
on Queenie, and you must love her just the same — love 
her better if possible.’’ 

“ Yes, yes,’’ grandma replied. Nothing shall change 
my love for her. Where is she ? Let me go to her at 
once.’’ 

Queenie, who was lying on the lounge, must have 
been almost asleep, for she heard nothing until a hand 
was laid gently upon her head, and a voice full of love 
and pity said to her : 

“ Ren7iet I poor little Rennet !** 

Then she started up, with a low cry, caused partly by 
surprise and partly by the sharp pain which seemed to 
pass from her heart to her head and to force tc the sur- 
face the tears which had been so long pent up, and which 
now fell like rain. She had never before heard hei 
grandmother call her “Rennet" without a feeling of 
irritation, or, as she had expressed it to Phil, without a 
“jerking of her elbows,’’ but now, as the familiar sound 
fell on her ears, there swept over her such a feeling of 
anguish, and regret, and intense longing for what she 
had lost, that the fountain of tears was broken up, and 
for some minutes she lay in the motherly arms held out 
to her. and cried so hard and piteously that Mrs. Fer- 


THE EXPLOSION, 381 

guson became alarmed at last, and tried to soothe and 
quiet her. But Reinette could not be quieted. 

“Let me cry,” she said; “it does me good. You 
know I have not shed a tear before since poor Phil died, 
and I guess I am crying more for him than for my lost 
birthright — my ” 

“Hush, Rennet;” grandma interrupted. “I don’t 
Know what you mean — don’t want to know — and if there 
is anything, my advice is, keep it to yourself. I took you 
to my heart as my own that fust day I saw you at t-he 
train, a little scart thing among so many strangers. I 
loved you then ; I’ve loved you ever sence, and alius will, 
no matter who you be.” 

“ Don’t you hurt me so !” Queenie cried with a keen 
pang of remorse, as she remembered how she had once 
rebelled against this woman, and refused to acknowledge 
her claim to relationship until it was proved beyond her 
power to gainsay it. 

And now she would have given the world to 
have called her “ grandmother,” and known that it was 
true. 

“I don’t deserve your love,” she said. “I have been 
so wicked, and have vexed you so many times, but, after 
Margery, you are dearer to me now than any living 
creature, though I am not your grandchild — Margery is 
that ; Margery is the baby born at Rome and hidden 
away from her father. Mrs. La Rue has told us all about 
it. She is my mother.” 

Queenie spoke very lov/, and a flush stained her 
cheeks, where the tears were still falling though not so 
fas^ as at first. She was growing a little calmer and 
more composed, and was beginning to tell Mrs. Ferguson 
what she had heard, when Mr. Beresford was announced. 
To Margery, he had said, “Queenie has written me a 
strange story. Do you know anyth! ng about it ? ” 

“Yes,” Margery answered^ with a quivering lip, “1 
heard mother tell her.’’ 


382 


THE EXPLOSION, 


“ And was that the first you knew of it ?” he askedj 
scrutinizing her closely. 

“No,” she said, hesitatingly, as if the confession were 
a pain. “ I knew it a few weeks ago ” 

“When you were sick, and you kept it to yourself for 
her sake,” Mr. Beresford interrupted her. “You are a 
brave girl, Margery. Few would have done what you 
have.” 

“ If they loved Queenie as I do they would,” she said. 
“ Oh, Mr. Beresford, if it should be true, can we not keep 
it to ourselves ? Need the world know it ?” 

“ If it depended upon you and me, it might be done,” 
he replied. “But I am afraid we could not manage 
Queenie. She seems determined to do you justice. 
Where is she, and can I see her ?” 


“ Yes, let him come at once. I wish to have it over,” 
Queenie said, when told that Mr. Beresford was in the 
house and had asked for her. 

She heard him coming, and rising to her feet and 
brushing her tears away she stood erect, with the old, 
proud look flashing in her eyes, for she would not allow 
this man, who had once asked her to be his wife, to see 
how utterly crushed and humiliated she was. But when 
she caught sight of his face, so full of pity, and sympathy, 
and concern for her, she broke down utterly and cried 
harder even than she had done when grandma hud called 
her Rennet. It was a perfect storm of sobs a id teais, 
and Mr. Beresford, who had never witnessed anything 
like it, felt the moisture gathering in his own eyes as he 
looked at the little figure writhing in such pain. 

“ Ik ou must excuse me, for I cannot help it,” she said, 
when she could speak. “ It is not this alone which affects 
me so. It is everything. The death scene on the ship, 
when father’s strange words foreshadowed this which has 
come upon me, and the loss of Phil, who would have 
stood by me in the face of everything.” 


THE EXPLOSION 


383 


“ And do you not think I will do that, Queenie ?” Mr 
Beresford said, sitting down beside her and taking her 
hot hands in his as naturally as if he had been her brothei 
or her lover. 

And as he looked upon her, so broken, and crushed, 
and helpless, and yet so sweet and lovely withal, there 
swept over him again something of the same feeling 
which had prompted him to ask her to be his wife that 
night upon the rocks. True it was that recent.y he had 
learned to think of another face very different from the 
white, tear-stained one before him. But there was a great 
pity in his heart for the girl who had so dazzled, and 
bewildered, and bewitched him — a desire to comfort and 
reassure her, and he felt tempted to take her in his arms 
and soothe her as he would have soothed a little child. 
Grandma Ferguson had left the room as he came in, and 
the two were alone altogether, and Queenie’s eyes, in 
which great tears were shining, were fixed upon him, and 
Queenie’s lips he had once so longed to kiss were quiver- 
ing in a grieved kind of way, and Queenie’s hands were 
in his, and so it is not so very strange that for a moment 
he forgot the face he had thought fairer than the one 
which he finally took between his two hands and held, 
while he said : 

“ Queenie, you do wrong to talk as if anything for 
which you are not responsible can make a difference 
with your friends — with me, who once hoped to be more 
than your friend. Queenie, I asked you once to be my 
wife, when you stood upon a dizzy height of prosperity 
and now I ask you again when misfortune seems to be 
overtaking you. Will you be mine, Queenie, and let me 
shield you from the storm and prove to you that I have 
loved you for yourself rather than tor your sur- 
roundings ?” 

Queenie’s face was a study, as she drew it away from 
his encircling hands, and from sheer weakness and ex- 
haustion lay wearily down upon the pillows of the lounge 


3^4 


THE EXPLOSION. 


while she looked at him long and earnestly. Never be- 
fore had Mr. Beresford seen so sweet, so soft and so wo- 
manly an expression in -Jie dark eyes as he saw t;iere 
now, and never had she seemed more desirable than 
she did when she answered him at last : 

“ I thank you so much, Mr. Beresford, for what you 
have said. It has done me a great deal of good, for if 
you can like me for myself alone there may be others 
who will do the same, and my life will not be quite so 
dreary. I will do you the justice to say that I believe 
you are in earnest now and mean what you say, but you 
are mistaken in the feeling which prompts you. It is pity 
for me, not love. But I thank you just the same, though I 
cannot accept your offer. When Phil went down beneath 
the waves my heart v.-ent with him, never to return. And 
you, Mr. Beresford, are destined for another. I know it ; 
I have seen it, and am so glad. She is worthy of you, 
and was worthy before accident revealed that in every- 
thing she was your equal. And you will be so happy 
together sometime when it is all settled, as it must be at 
once. Send for Mrs. La Rue and hear her story ; or 
rathei, go to her. I could not listen to it again. She 
will convince you of the truth of what she says, and you 
must fix whatever there is to fix, so that Margery will 
have justice done her as Mr. Hetherton’s daughter. 
Don’t let a thought of me interfere with her rights. And 
now go to Mrs. La Rue.” 

She waved him from her with her old air of authority 
and he had no alternative but to obey, and wishing her 
good-morning he went below stairs to seek an interview 
with Mrs. La Rue. 

As they had no suspicion of what bad happened, it 
was a mere accident which sent the Rossiters to Hether- 
£on Place that morning, and Mr. Beresford found them 
in the library with Grandma Ferguson, who had told 
them what she knew, and thrown them into a wild state 
nf surprise and excitement. 


THE EXPLOSION. 


385 


"Oh, Mr. Beresford,” Ethel said, going up to him as 
he entered the room, " is it true that Reinette is not our 
cousin ?” 

‘‘ I do not know, he replied ; “ I am going to ques- 
tion Mrs. La Rue. Shall I have her in here and let you 
hear what she has to say ?” 

" Yes, let her come,” Mrs. Rossiter said ; and in a few 
minutes Mrs. La Rue entered the room, calmer and 
mDre collected than she had been in months. 

She had told the truth to Queenie. The worst was 
over. She could meet anything now ; and at Mr. Beres- 
ford’s request she began her story, which she repeated in 
a straightforward manner, never once crossing herself or 
hesitating in the least, except when some strong emotion 
overcame her as she spoke of Margery and the day 
Queenie came to her in the Rue St. Honore. No one 
could doubt that she was telling the truth, and Mr. Ber- 
esford did not doubt her, but he said to her when she had 
finished : 

“ Have you no other proof than your mere assertion 
of facts ?” 

" Yes,” she replied ; "I can give you the name of the 
pension in Rome where Mrs. Hetherton died, and of 
the physician who attended her, and the clergyman who 
buried her. These gentlemen, if living, will testify to the 
fact that she left an infant daughter, whom I took away 
with me. Then, old Florine is still alive in Paris, and 
will show that I brought Margery to her and took her 
away at such a date, while Jacques Berdotte and his wife 
Jeanne, in Marseilles, can tell you that they served me 
when Queenie was born ; and I doubt not they will re- 
member the American gentleman who came to see me, 
and to whom I went when I left their house. I 
think they are both alive. You can write and see. I 
have also Mr. Hetherton’s last letter, written me from 
Paris when 1 was in the south of France, and he had 


386 


THE EXPLOSION, 


heard that the girl Margery, in whom Queenie .vas so 
much interested, was my daughter. That will prove 
that Queenie is, my child ; and after that you surely will 
believe me without the letter which my mistress wrote to 
her husband not long before she died, and in which she 
speaks of her blue-eyed, golden-haired baby, whom she 
hopes he will love because it is so much like her. I did 
not destroy that letter, though tempted to do so many 
times.” 

She talked rapidly, and every word carried fresh con- 
viction to Mrs. Rossiter, who was eager to see Margery 
and claim her as her sister’s child. Of the meeting be- 
tween Margery and her newly-found friends it is not my 
purpose to speak, except to say that at its close there 
was not in the minds of either a shadow of doubt as to 
the tie between them. 

But amid their joy there was a keen pang of regret 
and pain for the little, desolate girl up stairs, who, when 
at last they went to her, received them at first with a calm, 
stony face and dry eyes, whicn seemed to flash defiance 
at any pity they might feel for her, but who finally broke 
down in a storm of sobs and tears, and, laying her head 
on Mrs. Rossiter’s lap, begged her not to despise her for 
what she could not help. 

“ If I could die, I would,” she said, “ but I cannot. I 
am young, and life seems so lonely to me now, when once 
the days were too short for all I had to enjoy. Oh, why 
has God so dealt with me ? ” 

It was hard to answer that question, or explain why 
to this young girl, whose life had been so full of sunshine, 
so much wretchedness shouid have come. Anna Fers’u- 
son said it was to punish her for her pride, and that it 
served her right for having felt above them all. Miss 
Anna heard the news with a wonderful degree of 
equanimity. She was not greatly surprised, she said, for 
she had always thought Reinette different from other 
young girls, and now she knew it was the bad blood there 


THE EXFLOSTON, 


387 


was in her. She pitied her, of course, and should go 
over and see her, but Reinette could not expect people 
to tieat Christine Bodine's daughter just as they had 
treated Miss Hetherton. 

This was the ground Anna took, but she met with no 
upport from any one. On the contrary, the utmost 
sympathy was felt for Reinette when the story was 
known. Never before had Merrivale been so excited as 
it was now, for men, women, and children did nothing 
but talk of the affair from morning till night, and 
Margery, whom they all knew so well and liad seen so 
many times, became as great an object of curiosity as the 
Queen of England would have been had she passed 
through the town. 

To Margery this notoriety and scrutiny were exceed- 
ingly distasteful. She had fought the story of her birth 
as long as possible ; had said that it could not be true, 
even after Mr. Beresford, in whose judgment she relied 
so much, had told her to believe it without other proof 
than he had gathered from Mrs. La Rue. Of course he 
was bound to obtain all the evidence possible, both from 
Rome and France, and this he had taken steps to do ; 
and had suggested the possibility that the ceremony, 
which Christine had said took place at Chateau des 
Fleurs might be valid in France and thus legitimize 
Queenie. But there had been no witnesses, and Mr 
Iletherton had never in any way acknowledged Christine 
as his wife. There could be no doubt on the subject, and 
Margery alone was the heiress of Hetherton Place. He 
called her Miss Hetherton, now, whenever he addressed 
her, as riid the other people in town, and there always 
came an increase of color to Margery’s cheek when she 
heard the name and thought of the little heart-broken girl 
who had shut herself up in her room and refused to see 
those of her former acquaintance, who, prompted partly 
br "luricshy, and partly by genuine sympathy, came tc 
assure her of their continued friendship and esteem. 


388 


THE EXPLOSION, 


It is very kind in them, and I thank them so much ; 
but I cannot see them yet,'* she would say, when Mar 
gery brought her the message. 

And disappointed in their desire to see Reinette, the 
curious and meddlesome ones turned their attention to 
Mrs La Rue, but she, too, avoided and baffled them ; 
she had returned to the cottage in town, where she re- 
mained perfectly quiet, seeing no one and talking with 
no one except Margery and Mr. Beresford, to the latter 
of whom, as a lawyer, she was always communicative, 
giving him any information he wished for, and aiding 
him materially in procuring the proof, which, though he 
deemed it superfluous, he was desirous to obtain. To 
others she had said all she ever meant to say, and on the 
subject of her past life, her lips were sealed forever. 
Silent, cold, and impassive, she moved about her house, 
with no look of human interest on her white, stony face, 
except when Margery came, as siie did every day, with 
news of Queenie. Then the pale cheek would flush for 
a moment and the heavy eyes light up with eager expec- 
tancy as she asked the same question. “ Has she men- 
tioned me yet V 

“No, not yet,*' was always Margery’s answer, and 
then the color would fade away and the lips shut tightly 
together as if in pain, but no word of protest ever passed 
them, or complaint that she was not justly dealt with by 
the girl whose life she had blighted. 

It was Grandma Ferguson who stayed constantly with 
Queenie during the first few days after the story was 
known, and it was wonderful to see the love and confi- 
dence between them. With Queenie the feeling was 
almost idolatrous which she felt for the woman whose 
coarse speech and common ways had once been so 
obnoxious to her, but to whom she now clung wdth more 
than a child’s fondness for its mother. On her bended 
knees, with her head in grandma’s lap, she had confessed 
all che past, even to her rebellious feelings on that day 


THE EXPLOSION, 389 

when she stood on the platform at the station and was 
claimed by relatives of whom she had never heard. 

“ I was so wicked and proud,” she said, “ for I thought 
myself equal to the greatest lady in Europe, and I hated 
the way you spoke to me — hated everything about you 
and went on hating it, especially the purple gloves and 
moire antique, which made my elbows jerk, they so 
offended my eye.” 

And grandma fo?*gave the beautiful little sinner, and 
stroked the glossy, black hair, and told her not to mind, 
but get up and wipe her tears away, and be comforted. 

“ I ain’t an atom like you, she said, “and never could 
be if I tried ever so hard. ’Taint the purple gloves, 
neither, nor the mory antique, which makes the difference : 
it is my whole make-up from the beginnin’. Some ves- 
sels is coarse, and some is fine. Some is jugs, and some 
is china, and I am a jug of the roughest kind, but I love 
you, Queenie, and v/ill stick to you through thick and 
thin.” 

Then they talked together of Queenie’s future, and 
where she would go when she left Merrivale, as she was 
resolved upon doing, for a time at least. 

“ I may come back to Margery after awhile,” she said, 
“ but now I must go where no one knows me, and pities 
me. I will not be pitied, and so I must go away.” 

“ Then why not go to that place in Florida where 
your Gra’ma Hetherton used to live,” Mrs. Ferguson 
suggested. “ I’ve heard it was a fine place where they 
once kept a hundred niggers, though it must be awfully 
run down now.” 

“ You mean Magnolia Park,” Queenie rejoined. “ It 
is near Tallahassee. I have heard my father speak of it. 
He used to go there when a boy, and he told me what a 
grand old house it was, standing in the midst of a grove 
of magnolias, with rooms enough to accommodate twenty 
or thirty guests. Yes, I should like to go there. I should 


390 


THE EXPLOSION. 


like to see Florida. Pierre will go with me, and ..t will 
cost us but little to live.” 

“And let me give you that little,” grandma said. 
“ I’ve money in the bank, laid up for Anny ; but now she’s 
goin’ to marry so rich, she does not need it. Let me give 
you a thousand dollars to start on, and when that’s gone, 
you shall have more unless you are ready to come home, 
as you most likely will be.” 

The Florida plan struck Queenie very favorably. She 
had heard from her father of Magnolia Park, where Mrs. 
Hethertoii had lived before her marriage, and knowing 
nothing of the dilapidated condition of the house, or the 
many difficulties to be met and overcome before she 
could be even comfortable there, she was anxious to go 
at once, and broached the subject to Margery, who na- 
turally opposed it with all her powers. It was her wish 
that Queenie should remain at Hetherton Place, and 
share equally with her in their father’s home and for- 
tune. 

But this Queenie would not do. After a time she 
might feel differently, she said, but now she must go 
away, and as Magnolia Park could not be of any great 
value to Margery she was willing to accept so much and 
go there to live. So Mr. Beresford was consulted and 
questioned with regard to the place, of which they knew 
very little. Originally it was a fine plantation, with at 
least a hundred negroes upon it, but these were scattered 
by the war, and since that time, or rather since he had 
done business for Mr. Hetherton, the farm had been let 
to different parties, who took the house furnished as it 
was when the last of Mrs. Hetherton’s relations left it, 
and who were not supposed to have hau any particular 
care for it. Now, however, it was untenanted, and only 
a few acres of the best land were rented to a man whose 
plantation adjoined it. It might be habitable, and it 
might not, but his advice was that Queenie stay in Mer- 


THE EXPLOSION, 


39 * 


rivale, as it wa? getting near the last of February and not 
at all the time for going to Florida. 

But Queenie argued differently. March was the 
month when many tourists flitted to the South, she said. 
She would have plenty of time to get acclimated before 
summer, and she seemed so anxious and excited, and 
determined that a consulation was held between Mr. 
Beresford, Grandma Ferguson, and Margery, which re- 
sulted in the decision that as soon as the necessary ar- 
rangements could be made, Queenie should leave Merri- 
vale for Magnolia Park, accompained by Pierre and 
Axie, Mrs. Ferguson’s colored girl, who was trusty and 
efficient, and delighted with the prospect of a change 
from the monotonous life in Merrivale. This giving up 
of Axie, who had lived with her so many years, was 
grandma’s own proposition, which she strenuously in- 
sisted upon, saying, when Queenie remonstrated, that it 
would not be for long, as they’d soon get enough of that 
heathenish land of niggers and sand, and be back to the 
North again. 

The last week in February was fixed upon for 
Queenie’s departure, and the day before she left, the 
Hetherton carriage drove through the village to the cot- 
tage, where Mrs. La Rue was living alone. From it 
Queenie alighted, and entering unannounced remained 
there for half an hour or more. But of that interview 
nothing was ever known, except this : When, next day 
Margery called at the cottage and reported that Queenie 
had gone, Mrs. La Rue said, with a quivering lip and 
irembling voice : 

“ She kissed me and called me mother.” 


392 


MAGNOLIA j>ARN. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

MAGNOLIA PARK. 

HIRTY years before our story opens, Magnoli^j 
Park was one of the finest places in middle 
Florida. But after the death of Mrs. Heiher- 
ton, who had been born and married there, 
and who spent a part of every winter in her old home, 
there was no one left to care particularly for it, as Mr. 
Hetherton had lands enough of his own to look after. 
So the place began to go down, and when the war swept 
like a wave of fire over the South, it was left tenantless 
and unprotected save by an old negro, Uncle Sim, and 
his wife. Aunt Judy, who lived in the whitewashed 
cabin on the grounds, paying no heed to the rumors of 
freedom which reached them from time to time, as the 
terrible conflict between brother and brother went on. 
They were as free as they ever wished to be, they said, 
and all they asked was to be let alone and left to die on 
the old place. So they staid, and did their best to guard 
the house of which they were so proud, and which, at 
two different times, was made a kind of hotel for the 
soldiery, who were scouring the country. A night and 
a day the Boys in Blue halted there, carrying off whatever 
they conveniently could of the many valuable articles 
with which the house was furnished, and one of them, an 
olTicer, having a hand-to-hand fight with old Judy, who 
tried to wrench from him a pair of silver candlesticks he 
was stuffing in his pockets. He took away the candle- 
sticks and also a black eye and a bloody nose which 
A^unt Judy had given him as a memento of his stay at 
Magnolia Park. 

A week later, and a party of the Boys in Gray swoop- 
ed down upon the place and spent the night in the house 



MAGNOLIA FARK. 


393 

and fed on Judy’s corn cakesand bacon, and killed Uncle 
Sim’s big turkey, and turned the once handsome rooms 
into barracks, but were prevented from committing as 
extensive depredations as their predecessors had done 
simply because, aside from the six-legged piano on which 
they pounded Dixie vigorously, and the massive bedsteads 
and chairs and tables, there was little or nothing to steal. 
Warned by the lesson learned from their first visitors, 
Sim and Judy had dug a deep hole at the side of their 
cabin, and lining it with blankets had filled it with the 
remaining valuables of the house ; then, covering them 
witli another heavy blanket, they heaped dirt and sand 
upon them, and built over the spot a rude hen-house, 
w here several motherly hens brooded over their young 
ciiickens. After this Sim and Judy lived in comparative 
ease until the war was over and peace and quiet reigned 
once more in Florida. Then the premises were let to a 
young Kentuckian, who soon grew tired of his bargain, 
and gave it up, and the house was empty again. 

When Mr. Beresford first took charge of the Hether- 
ton estate, he wrote to Frederick, asking why he did not 
sell the Florida lands, which yielded him nothing. But 
this Frederick would not do. Magnolia Park had been 
his mother’s home, and a place where, as a boy, he had 
been very happy ; and, as he could afford to keep it, he 
wrote to that effect to Mr. Beresford, telling him to let 
it if he could, and if not, to let it alone. So Mr. Beres- 
ford let it alone, except when so ne one wished to rent a 
few acres of the land, which was the case when Reinette 
decided to go there. Then he wrote to the man whose 
plantation adjoined Magnolia Park, telling him that a 
daughter of the late Mr. Hetherton was about to visit 
Florida, and asking him to see that a few of the rooms 
wei e made comfortable for her. U nfortunately this letter 
was miscarried or lost, so that Reinette’s arrival was 
wholly unexpected, and produced the utmost consterna- 
tion in the whitewashed cabin, where Uncle Sim and 


17 


394 


MAGNOLIA PARK, 


Judy were taking’ their evening meal, and feeding the 
four dogs hanging around them. 

Quccnie had traveled night and day until she reached 
the station at Tallahassee, where she took a carriage for 
Magnolia Park, a distance of two or three miles. The 
day was drawing to a close, and the sun was just setting 
when they turned off from the highway into the road, 
which wound through the fields for a quarter of a mile 
or more up to the house. 

“ Dat’s ’ em ; dat’s the place,” said the driver, whose 
name was Boston, and he pointed to a huge wooden 
building standing upon a little rise of ground and sur- 
rounded by tall magnolias. 

Once it must have been a little paradise, but now it 
was stripped of all its glory, and stood there desolate 
and dreary, with the paint all washed from its walls and 
the lights broken from the lower windows, while here 
and there a door was gone, and the shutters hung by one 
hinge, or swung loosely in the wind. 

Involuntarily Queenieheld out her hand to Axie, who 
took it in her strong palm, and said, encouragingly : 

“ It may be better inside. Anyway, I can soon fix it 
up, and the situation is lovely.” 

Attracted by the sound of wheels, the four dogs now 
came rushing down the road, barking so furiously that 
Queenie turned pale with fright, and clung closer to 
Axie. But when the noisy pack saw Boston, whom the) 
knew, their barking changed into whines of recognition, 
which brought Uncle Sim and Aunt Judy round the 
corner of the house, where the latter stopped, and with 
her hands on her fat hips eyed the strangers curiously, 
Somebody gwine to visit Miss Strong, most likely ; 
but why did Boston fetch ’em here ?” she thought. 

But when Queenie alighted, and going up to her told 
her that she was Miss Hetherton, granddaughter of Miss 
Lucy Marshall, who used to live at Magnolia Park, ana 
tliat she had come to stav, her consternation knew no 


MAGNOLIA PARK, 


395 


bounds, and while dropping a courtesy to Queenie, and 
saying to her, “An’ sho’ you’re welcome, miss,” she was 
thinking to hertelf, “ For de dea’ Lord’s sake, whatever 
11 I do ivid sich quality as dis, and whar ’ll I put her i 
There ain’t a room in de whole house fit for a nigger oi 
a cracker to sleep in. An’ she’s de real stuff dat ladies 
is made of. Can’t cheat dis chile.” 

“ Honey,” she said at last to Queenie, who was look 
ing ruefully around her. “ I’s no whar to ax you to sit 
down jes dis minute but in my cabin, whar I done scour- 
ed the flo’ dis blessed day. If I had known you’re cornin’ 
I’d done somethin’.” 

Queenie explained that a letter had been sent to 
some one announcing her expected visit, and added, with 
a little shiver, “Let me jo to your cabin. I am very 
tired and chilly.” 

So Aunt Judy led the way to her quarters, which were 
as neat and clean as soap and water and her strong hands 
could make them. A pine knot was blazing on the 
hearth, diffusing a delightful degree of light and warmth 
through the room, and Queenie felt better and less deso- 
late than when standing outside in the chill twilight, 
which had succeeded the warm spring day. Before 
entering the cabin, Axie, accompanied by Sim and Judy, 
made the tour of the house, deciding at once that to pass 
the night in that damp, cheerless place, was utterly im- 
possible. Queenie might have gone to town and staid 
at a hotel until something like decency and cleanliness 
was restored to a few of the rooms, but Boston had left, 
and there was no alternative but to sleep in Judy’s 
cabin. This, however, Queenie did not mind. Reared 
as she had been in France, she had none of the American 
prejudice against the African race, and ate her hot corn- 
cake which Aunt Judy baked for hev, and drank 
her coffee fi^Ji Judy’s cups, with almost as keen a 
relish as she had ever dined at the Meurice. Once, 
indeed, as she remembered Chateau des Fleurs, and Heth 


MAGNOLIA PARK, 


ercon Place, and then glanced at her humble sui ro indr 
ing, there came a great lump in her throat, and her 
hands involuntarily struck the air as if to thrust som(;- 
thing from her. But she meant to be very biave, and 
when at last she was lifted by Aunt Judy into the clean, 
comfortable bed, which had been made for her upon "ht 
low kitchen table., she fell asleep almost immediately^ 
and knew nothing more until the morning sun was shin- 
ing in at the open door, and she heard Axie and Jud) 
outside consulting together about the propriety of wak- 
ing her. 

Greatly refreshed with her night’s rest Queenie 
felt better and decided that the place w^as not so 
bad, after all ; but a close inspection of the prem- 
ises after breakfast convinced her that, for the pre- 
sent at least, she must seek q’xarters elsewhere. Rooms 
there were in abundance. And furniture, but every- 
thing had gone to decay ; everything was moldy 
and worm-eaten, and smelled of rats, and must and 
foul air. And still, as Axie said, there were great 
capabilities in the place, and with a little time and 
money, and a great deal of hard work, a portion of the 
house could be made not only habitable^ but very com- 
fortable and attractive. Meantime, Queenie must go 
away, for it was impossible for her to stay there while 
the renovating process was going on. But where to go 
was a question which troubled Queenie not a little, un- 
til Aunt Judy suggested an idea to her by saying, 
“Thar’s Jacksonville on de river. Why not go thar a 
spell ? Heaps of de gentry from de Noff is thar, and a 
sight of mighty fine dresses at dem grand hotels. Jack- 
sonville is a mighty big city — bigger dan New iork, I 
reckon.” 

Queenie .'md heard of Jacksonville, and she at once 
seized upon Jud}’s suggestion as something practicable. 
She would go to that winter Saratoga of the South and 
see what it was like. Possibly she might be amused 


MAGNOLIA PARK. 


397 


with what she saw, and so the pain at her heart be les- 
sened a little. She WDuld go that very da) , she said, for she 
was full of a burning restlessness and desire for charitge. 
But Judy, who knew something of the running of the 
trains, told her it was tlien too hue ; she must wait until 
the next day, and pass another night upon the kitchen 
table. From this, however Queen ie was saved, for, 
while they were speaking, they caught the sound of 
wheels, and, shading her eyes with her hands, Aunt 
Judy saw entering the park a carriage with a lady in it. 

Dar’s Miss Strong from de Homestead,” she exclaimed. 
“She’s de ole Govenor’s darter and de fustest lady in 
dese parts. Got a head full of brains, and writes for all 
de papers in de land. She be comen here, sho’-nuf.” 
And Judy was right, for Boston had stopped at the 
Homestead the previous night, and had told of the young 
lady — Miss Hetherton — whom he had brought to Mag- 
nolia Park. Mis. Strong remembered well the tall, 
handsome boy, Frederick Hetherton, who, when she was 
a child, had passed a winter at the Park, which was then 
one of the finest places in the State. She remembered, 
too, the stately lady, his mother, who had more than 
once dined at the Homestead, and she had no doubt that 
the young girl of whom Boston told her, was the grand- 
daughter of that lady, and daughter of the boy Frederick. 
But why had she come to Magnolia Park so late in the 
season, and how was she to exist, even for a day, in that 
dilapidated, forsaken spot ? 

“ I will go to see her at once and bring her home 
with me/’ was Mrs. Strong’s first thought, upon which 
she acted immediately. 

Introducing herself to Queenie, who advanced to meet 
her as she descended from her carriage, she said : 

“If I mistake not, you arc the daughter of Frederick 
Hetherton, whom I knew when I was a little girl. 
Though several years older than myself, he was very kind 


39 * 


MAGNOLIA PARK. 


to me, and I have spent hours with him under tie shadow 
of these trees and those in the grounds of my own home/’ 

The mention of her father by one who had seen and 
known him brought the hot tears at once to Qiieenie’s 
eyes, but she dashed them aside, and explaining that 
Frederick Hetherton was her father, she led Mrs. Strong 
into the house, and sitting down beside her, answered as 
well as she could the questions which her visitor put to 
her concerning her home in Paris and her father’s sad 
death on shipboard. 

“ I had heard something of this before,” Mrs. Strong 
said to her, “for the lawyer who has charge of your 
father’s affairs at the North wrote to a friend of mine 
who is supposed to look after the estate, that it now 
belonged to a young lady, the only direct heir of the 
Hethertons. It is rather a sorry place for a young girl 
to come to, but I suppose you do not intend remaining 
heve long.” 

“Yes; always; I have no other home,” Queenie 
replied, and her voice was choked with tears which she 
fought bravely back. 

Mrs. Strong was a kind-hearted, far-seeing woman, 
and as she studied this girl, scarcely older than her own 
daughter Nina, whom she somewhat resembled, she felt 
strangely drawn toward her, and felt, too, that over her 
young life some terrible storm had swept. 

“ 1 will not ask her what it is,” she thought, “ but I’ll 
be a friend to her, as I should wish some woman to 
befriend my Nina were she here alone with those strange 
attendants.” 

Then she said : 

“ I think I heard that Mr. Hctherton’s wife died in 
Rome, years ago. It must have been at your birth.” 

For a moment Queenie sat as rigid as if turned into 
stone, her fists clinched, and her eyes staring at Mrs. 
Strong, who looked at her wonderingly. Then a tremor 
ran through her frame, and she shook from head to foot. 


MAGNOLIA PARK. 


399 


Oh, I can’t bear it ! I can’t bear it ! ” she crieo, at 
last. “My head will burst if I keep it. I must tell you 
the truth ; you seem so good and kind, and I want a friend 
so much. Mother did not die in Rome — that was 
Margery’s mother ; mine is still alive, and I had no right 
to be born.” 

Then, amid bursts of tears and broken sobs, Queenie 
told her story from beginning to end — from Chateau des 
Fleurs down to Magnolia Park, where she hctd come to 
hide from all who had ever known her. Had Queenie 
tried, she could not have found a more sympathizing 
listener to her recital, and when it was finished, Mrs. 
Strong’s tears flowed almost as freely as her own, as she 
took the young girl in her arms, and kissing her lovingly, 
tried to comfort and reassure her, while at the same time 
she administered a little reproof. 

“ 1 think you should have staid with Margery,” she 
said ; “ but since you are here, we will do the best we 
can for you. And now you must go home with me and 
stay until some of these rooms arc made comfortable for 
you.” 

But to this Queenie objected. She had a great desire 
to see Jacksonville, she said, and was going there for 
two weeks or more. 

“Jacksonville, and alone,” Mrs Strong repeated, and 
Queenie replied that Axie was going with her to see her 
settled, and then leave her with Pierre, while she re- 
turned to the Park to superintend the renovating process. 

“There can be no harm in that, can there ?” she asked, 
and Mrs. Strong peplied: 

“ Oh, no, it is not an unheard-of thing for ladies to be 
at the hotel alone, but I think they usually have some 
acquaintances there, and you have none. If, however, 
you insist upon going, I shall write to the proprietor of 
the St. James to have a care over you, and also to some 
friends of mine, residents in town, whose attentions and 
friendship will be of great service to you, and shield you 


400 


AT THE ST /AMES. 


from the curious, gossiping ones who are to be found 
everywhere, and especially at large hotels. Cais^ I call 
them, for they partake largely of the nature of that 
treacherous animal, smooth and purring if you stroke 
them the right way, but biting and scratching if you do 
not. There are plenty of them at the St. James, I dare 
say, but I think I can keep ycu from their claws, if you 
will go. Possibly the change may do you good. It will 
amuse you, at all events. But you must spend to-day and 
to-night with me; and to-morrow, if you still insist, you 
can take the train for Jacksonville.” 

To this plan Queenie assented, and spent the day and 
night at Mrs. Strong’s, and the next morning started 
with Pierre and Axie for the St. James Hotel. 


CHAPTER XLVI. 

AT THE ST. JAMES. 

was too late in the season for guests to be 
coming from the North, but the increasing 
heat of the warm spring days was driving 
the people from points up the river, so that 
Jacksonville was full of visitors, and the St. James was 
crowded when Reinette arrived there in the train from 
Tallahassee. 

“A small room will suit me ; I do not care for a very 
expensive one,” she said, timidly, as she stood before 
the clerk’s desk, with Pierre and Axie on either side of 
her. 

But the only vacant room in the house was one on 
the third floor front, and of this Queenie took possession, 
glad to escape for a time at least from the curious eyes 



AT THE ST JAMES. 


401 


which she felt were turned upon her. In all large hotels 
where the guests mingle freely together at table d’hote 
and in a common parlor, there is necessarily a good deal 
of gossip, and talk, and speculation with regard tc 
strangers, especially if the latter chance to be at all out 
of the common order. And to this rule the St. James was 
not an exception. As Mrs. Strong had said, it had its 
cats, as what hotel has not? idle, listless cats, who lead 
an aimless life, with nothing to do but scratch and tear 
each other, sometimes with claws unsheathed, but oftener 
with velvet paws and purring notes, and dark insinua- 
tions, which are far more dangerous, inasmuch as tlicy 
cannot be met and combatted openly. Cliques, too, there 
were, the members of wdiich, after criticising and talking 
each other up, turned their attention to any new-comers 
unfortunate enough to differ from the ordinary type of 
w^^omen, and Queenie was one of these. Everybody was 
interested in her. Everybody turned to look after her as 
she walked through the hall, or entered or left the din- 
ing-room, and many sought the books for imformation. 
But “Miss Hetherton, Merrivale, Mass.,” told them no- 
thing definite of the dark-faced little girl in black, who 
sat apart from them all, with a strange expression in the 
brilliant eyes, which swept the room so often and so 
rapidly, and which had in them a far-off look of weariness 
and pain rather than any particular interest in what was 
passing around her. Then one of the ladies tried Pierre. 
But at the first alarm the old man conveniently forgot 
every word of English he had ever known, and jabbered 
in his native tongue so rapidly that his interlocutor 
turned from him in dismay and opened her batteries upon 
Axie, w’hom she encountered in the hall. But Axie, too, 
was non-committal, or mostly so. Miss Hetherton was 
French and had always lived in Paris until quite recently, 
when she came to Merrivale. the old home of her father, 
who died upon the voyage, leaving her alone. Magnolia 
Park, near Tallahassee, belonged to the Hetherton 


4.02 


AT THE ST. JAMES. 


estates, and thitnei the young lady had come for a change 
of air and scene, but finding that the place was a gooc 
deal run down and needed some repairs, she had decidec 
to spend a little time at the St. James while they were 
being made. 

This was Axie’s explanation, which was wholly satis 
factory, and as it was repeated with sundry additions, a,’) 
in Queenie’s favor, she was indorsed at once, and had she 
chosen, she might have been a belle and headed every 
clique in the house. But Queenie was far too sad and 
her heart was too full of pain to care for flattery, and yet 
-n a way she was interested and amused with what she saw 
of life at the St. James, and liked to sit alone by herself 
in a quiet corner of the great parlor and watch the people 
around her — the devotees of whist, who night after night 
sat at the same table, with the same people, and usually 
with the same result ; the dancers, who occasionally 
varied the monotony with a quadrille or a waltz ; and 
the knots of lookers-on gathered here and there in groups, 
and whispering their confidences to each other. It was 
all very new and very strange to Queenie, who had 
never seen anything like it, and she was beginning to 
forget in part her great sorrow in the scenes around her, 
when an unexpected arrival brought the past back to her 
in all its bitterness, and made her shrink more than ever 
from intercourse with strangers. This arrival was none 
other than that of Mistress Anna Rossiter, nee Anna 
Ferguson, who had been three weeks a bride, and after 
doing Washington, as she expressed it, had resolved to 
see a little of Florida life before the season was fairly 
over and the Northerners gone home. 

Miss Anna’s wedding had been a very quiet one, 
owing to poor Phil’s recent death, and only a few of the 
villagers had been honored with an invitation ; but those 
so honored had been among the first in town — the 
Grangers, and Markhams, and Marshalls, against whom 
Anna had once rebelled so hotly because of fancied 


AT THE ST, JAMES. 


403 


slights r,iid indignities. It was now her turn to hold jp 
her head, she thought : she was to be Mrs. Lord Sey- 
mour Rossiter, with a house in New York, and another 
on the Hudson if she liked. She was to have a maid, 
and diamonds, and her carriage, and servants in livery, 
for she liked thc-xse long coats and yellow boots, she said, 
and she meant to have her women servants wear caps, as 
she was told they did abroad. 

Anna was very happy. The old days of dressmaking 
and drudgery were over. No more pricked red fingers 
for her, no more bundles to be carried home to those 
who bade her ring at the side instead of the front door. 

»11 that was past and gone. The sign which had once 
so annoyed her was split and burned. It was hers now 
to snub instead of being snubbed, and so she began by 
slighting the very ones who had been kind to her, but 
whom she did not consider worthv of her notice in the 
days of her prosperity. She shoula begin her new life 
as she could hold out, and she would not have Tom, 
Dick, and Flarry hanging to her skirts, she said, and she 
put aside the friends with whom she had been in the 
habit of associating intimately, and invited only those 
with whom it could scarcely be said she had ever been 
recognized as an equal. Margery was, of course, one <j{ 
the guests, for she was now Miss Hetherton, of Hetber- 
ton Place, and it was an honor to claim her as a relation. 

Mrs. La Rue was wholly ignored. A woman of her 
reputation, whose life had been a lie, had no right to 
expect civilities from the people she had deceived, Anna 
argued, and Mrs. La Rue’s name was omitted from 
the list. 

But the intended slight failed to touch the sad, re- 
morseful v/oman, who now lived quite alone at the cot- 
tage, having resisted all Margery’s entreaties that she 
should make her home at Hetherton Place. Since her 
confession, and especially since Queenie’s departure for 
die South, she had fallen into a sad and siler t mcod, 


404 


AT THE ST. JAMES. 


shrinking fiom every one, and preferring to live entirely 
alone, as solitude was best suited to such as she. And 
so she scarcely gave a thought to the wedding which 
took place one afternoon in the best room of Tom Fer- 
guson’s house, with only the elite of Merrivale looking 
on and commenting upon the airs of the bride and the 
childish delight of the bridegroom, who did not attempt 
to conceal his joy, but rubbed his hands in the exuber- 
ance of delight and kissed the bride many times the mo- 
ment she was pronounced his wife. 

There was a short trip to New York, and a long one 
to Washington, where Anna created a great sensation 
with her satins, and velvets, and diamonds, which she 
wore on all occasions. She had sold her youth and 
beauty for gold, and she meant to reap the full price of 
her charms. Every day she blossomed out in a new 
costume, with jewelry to match, and as she was really 
pretty, and could be very gracious when she tried, Mrs. 
Lord Seymour Rossiter, became the rage and was 
flattered, and admired, and complimented to her heart’s 
content, and mentioned in the papers as the most distingue 
and lovely woman in Washington — notices which she 
read with great satisfaction at the breakfast-table every 
morning, and then passed to her husband, with the 
remark : 

“ How perfectly absurd ! Did you ever read suoh 
nonsense ? ” 

Anna was growing very fast, and talked of her 
relations, the Rossiters, and the Hethertons, and enjoyed 
herself immensely in her handsome suite of rooms at the 
Riggs House, where she would have spent a longer time, 
but for a letter received from Grandma Ferguson, which 
threw her into a wild state of alarm and apprehension. 
The good old lady had long wished to visit Washington 
and see the doin ' she wrote, and “she couldn’t have a 
better time than when Anna was there to go round with 
her and show her the elephant. So, she’d about made up 


AT THE ST. JAMES. 


405 


her mind to pick up and start, as her clothes were all 
nice and new, and Anna might expect her any day, and 
had better engage a room at once. A small one on the 
top floor would answer, as she did not mean to spend all 
her money on rooms, and she could just as well take some 
of her meals at a restaurant as not ! ” 

“Oh-h!” and Anna fairly gasped as she read this 
letter, which she found lying by her plate one morning, 
when she came down to breakfast alone after a brilliant 
party, of which she had been the belle. “ Oh-h !” and the 
cold sweat ozed from every pore as she thought of her 
grandmother swooping down upon her, and with her 
brown silk, and purple gloves, and pink ribbons, and 
dreadful grammar, demolishing the fair structure of 
blood, and family, and position, which she had secured 
for herself. 

Knowing her grandmother as she did, she felt certain 
that she would come, if some decisive step v/ere not taken 
to prevent it. And Anna took the decisive step, and 
turning her back upon the fresh fields of glory she had 
meant to win in Washington, she telegraphed im- 
mediately to her grandmother that she should leave thf 
city that day, but said nothing of her destination. 

“ She would not mind following me to Europe, ifsht 
knew I was going there — the vulgar old thing !” she 
thought, with an indignant toss of fine-ladyism. “ I will 
not have her spoiling everything. I am done with the 
old, hateful life. I am Mrs. Lord Seymour Rossiter and 
mistress of my own actions.’* 

So she sent the telegram and then sought her husband, 
who had breakfasted before her and was reading his 
paper in his room. 

“Dearest,” she said, laying her hand caressingly upon 
his head, “I am so tired of Washington, where they sav 
such silly things of me. Such a nonsensical article ^ 
there is in the paper this morning about the young and 
heantiful Mrs. Rossiter, whose sweet, fresh fa e and 


4o6 


AT THE ST. JAMES. 


charmiiify manners please every one, and whose dress is 
a marvel of laste and elegance. Why, they even esti- 
mated the value of my diamonds. I am sick of it all ; it 
makes one so common ; and then I know they would say 
the same of the next new-comer, if her dress was richer 
than mine. These reports are insufferable. Let’s go 
avvay — to-night ; go to Florida for a week or two: it is 
not too late, and I don’t mind hot weather in the least. 
We shall be more quiet there, and I shall see more of 
you. Now, with the driving, and dressing, and calling, 
I scarcely have a bit of your company.” 

She was in his lap by this time and her fingers were 
lifting deftly his scant hair and fixing it over his bald 
spot. Whatever Anna might lack she knew how to 
manage her husband, who, throwing down his paper and 
encircling her slender waist, said to her : 

“Sick of it, are you. Pussy? Why, I thought you 
liked it immensely : women generally do ; but it shows 
your good sense not to want to be stared at and written 
up b}?- a lot of snipper-snappers. But for heaven’s sake 
don’t goto Florida ! You will roast alive.” 

The major had once been to St. Augustine in the days 
before the war, and it made him tired to think of the 
long, wearisome journey by land and the still worse trip 
by sea. But Anna’s heart was set upon Florida, and she 
carried her point and left Washington that night with 
her tliree trunks and maid, who had been found in New 
\'ork, and on whom Mrs. Anna called for the most trivial 
service, even to the picking up of her handkerchief, 
which it would seem she sometimes dropped on purpose, 
for the sake of showing her authority. Anna was very 
proud of her position and proud of her name, so out of 
the common order of names. Lord Seymour RossUer had 
a sound of nobility in it, and she persuaded her husband 
to leave off the J/r. when he registered at hotels, “just 
to try the effect,” she said. And so “ Lord Seymour 
Rossiter. lady, and maid,” was the record in the book at 


at the ST. JAMES. 


407 


the St. James, which the bridal pair reached one evening 
about nine o’clock. 

Of course such a registry attracted attenuon and 
comment, and before ten o’clock half the people in the 
parlor heard that a real live lord and lady had arrived, 
and great was the interest in and the curiosity to see 
tliem. 

And Anna bore herself like a grand duchess, and had 
ail the airs of twenty titled ladies, when next morning 
she stepped out of the elevator into the broad hall, the 
train of her blue morning dress sweeping far behind her, 
and a soft, fleecy white shawl wrapped gracefully and 
negligently around her. She knew she was creating a 
sensation, and her voice, never very low, was pitched a 
little higher as she asked the clerk if he had no private 
parlors — no sitting-rooms attached to the bedrooms. 
The clerk was very sorry, but there were no suites of 
rooms, he said; they were seldom called for, as the guests 
generally preferred sitting in the parlor, and hall, and 
upon the piazzas. 

“ Yes, but I do not,” Anna replied, in her most super- 
cilious tone ; ‘‘ and I think it very strange that a hotel 
like this should have no suites of rooms ; but possibly 
3 'ou can obviate that difficulty by giving us an extra room. 
1 should like the one adjoining mine. It will not be 
much trouble to take out the bed and convert it into a 
parlor.” 

She spoke as if the thing were settled, and was mov- 
ing away, when the clerk stopped her by saying : 

‘‘ But, madam, it is impossible to give you No. — , as it 
.s already occupied by Miss Hetherton.” 

Miss Hetherton ! What Miss Hetherton, pray ?” and 
Anna’s voice lost the lady-like tone to which she had 
been trying to bring it since her accession of dignity. 

Quietly turning the pages of the book back to a pre- 
vious date, the clerk pointed to the entry, “ Miss Hether- 
ton, Merrivale, Mao%” while Anna repeated, scornfully: 


4o8 


AT THE ST. JAMES. 


Miss Hetherton, Merrivale Mass. !’ Is she here, and 
aione T* while the elevating of her eyebrows, and the 
significant shrug of her shoulders expressed more tlian 
her words. 

“You know the lady, then?” the clerk ventured tc 
say; for, in spite of Anna’s diamonds and airs, there was 
something about her which told him he could take more 
liberty with her than with many another guest of far 
less pretension. 

“ Know her? Yes ; but I did not expect to find her 
here,” Anna answered, and then swept on toward the 
dining-room door, where her husband was waiting for 
her. 

Everybody looked up as she entered the room, and 
many whispers and many glances were exchanged as she 
passed on to her seat, which was quite at the end of the 
long hall ; and so acute is the Yankee perception of 
the true and the false, the washed metal and the real, 
that even before she had been settled in her chair by her 
attentive husband, the verdict passed upon her by those 
for whose opinion she would care the most was, “ Not a 
genuine lady, whatever her rank may be.” There was 
too much show and arrogance about her, and the dia- 
monds in her ears, and, more than all, the heavy cross 
and chain she wore, were sadly out of place at the break- 
fast-table. 

Meanwhile another guest had entered the dining- 
room, a graceful little figure, clad in black, which was, 
however, relieved by plain linen collar and cuffs, and a 
cream-colored rose at the throat, which wonderfully 
heightened the effect and made Queenie an object to be 
looked after as she moved up the hall, the color deepen- 
ing in her cheeks and her brilliant eyes lifted occasion- 
ally and flashing a look of recognition upon those she 
knew. Her seat was at the same table with Mistress 
Anna, who was never so startled in her life as she was 


AT THE ST. /AMES. 


409 


when a hand was laid familial ly upon her shouhJer and 
a voice she recognized said to her : 

“ Oh, Anna, are you here ? I am so glad to see 
you !" 

And Queenie was glad, for, though she had never liked 
Anna Ferguson much, the unexpected meeting with her 
in far-off Florida, where all were strangers, made her 
seem very near to the desolate, heart-sick girl, who could 
have fallen upon her neck and kissed her for the some- 
thing in her face which brought the dead Phil to mind. 

But Anna’s manner was not provocative of any such 
demonstrations. She was not glad to see Queenie, for 
like all low, mean natures, she was ready to suspect 
others of what she knew she would do in similar circum- 
stances, and when she learned that Queenie was in the 
hotel her first thought was that now her antecedents, of 
which she was so much ashamed, would be known, either 
from Queenie or Axie, neither of v/hom had much cause 
to love her, and thus the castle she had built for herself 
would be demolished. 

And this was the reason why her manner toward 
Queenie was so cold and constrained, and even haughty, 
that the young girl felt repelled and wounded, and the 
hot blood mounted to her face and then left it deadly 
pale, as she took her seat at the table directly opposite 
Anna, who scarcely spoke to her again, except to ask 
some commonplace question or to remark upon the 
weather. 

This little scene, however, was noticed by those 
sitting near, and the conclusion reached that the new- 
comer meant to slight Miss Hetherton ; but it did not 
harm her one whit, for her sad, sweet face and qir.et dig- 
nity of manner had won upon the guests, while, owing 
to Mrs. Strong’s influence, some of the best and first 
people in town had called upon her, so that her standing 
was assured, and Anna’s coldness could not matter, but 
it hurt feer cruelly to be thus treated, when she was long- 


410 


AT THE ST. /AMES. 


ing so much for sympathy, and she coi/.d scarcely res- 
train her tears until breakfast was over, and in the 
privacy of her room she could indulge her grief, with no 
one to see her but Axie, who learned at last the cause of 
her grief. 

Axie was not a girl of many words, but there was a 
look in her black eyes which boded no good to Mrs. 
Anna, and, before the day was over, every one in the 
hotel at all interested in the matter knew exactly who 
Mrs. Lord Seymour Rossiter was and where she came 
from, and that at home, to use Axie’s words, “she was 
of no kind o’ count side of Miss Hetherton.” 

So Anna’s star began to wane almost before it had 
risen, or would have done so but for her perseverance 
and push, which oftentimes compelled attention where it 
miglit not otherwise have been given. She was pretty, 
and fast, and rich, and this gained her favor with a certain 
class, and especially with the young men, with whom 
she was very popular. Night after night, while her 
husband played at whist or euchre in the gentlemen’s 
room, she danced and flirted in the parlors, and wore her 
handsome dresses and diamonds, and furnished the ca^s 
with no end of gossip, and flattered herself that at last 
she was happy. With a woman’s ready wit she soon 
discovered that she had made a mistake with regard to 
Queenie, and so she changed her tactics and tried to be 
very gracious to her, but Queenie did not need her 
patronage. She had scores of friends, and the days 
* passed pleasantly and rapidly away. A.xie had returned 
to the Park soon after Anna’s arrival, and wrote her 
mistress at last that the house would be ready for her 
within a week, and at the end of that time Queenie left 
the Hotel with Pierre, and went to begin a new life in a 
home as unlike everything she had ever known as it wel 
could be. 


THE YELLO W FE VER. 


411 


CHAPTER XLVIL 

THE YELLOW FEVER. 

T was very hot in Florida that summer, but it 
suited Queenie, whc, like some tropical plant, 
seemed to thrive under the burning sun which 
affected even the negroes, accustomed to it as 
they were. Physically she had never been better than 
she was at Magnolia Park, or prettier either, for the 
bright color had crept back to her cheeks and her eyes 
had in them a look of softness and humility, while 
the expression of her face was ineffably sweet and gentle 
like the faces of some of the Madonnas. She had suffered 
terribly, and the fierce storm through which she had 
passed had left its marks upon her so that she would 
never again be quite the same dashing, impetuous girl 
she once had been. Margery wrote to her often, — long 
letters full of tenderness and affection, and entreaties for 
her to return to the home which was not the same 
without her. 

From Grace and Ethel Rossiter she also heard fre- 
quently, and their letters touched her closely, as they 
always addressed her as their cousin, ignoring altogether 
the terrible thing which had separated her fronr. them. 
Once in speaking of Margery Ethel said : “ She is very 
lonely at Hetherton Place, though we go there often, and 
Mr. Beresford, we hear, is there every day.” 

This was underscored, and conveyed to Queenie’s 
mind just the meaning Ethel meant it to convey. Mr. 
Beresford was daily growing more and more interested 
in Margery, and Queenie rejoiced that it was so. She 
was so glad for Margery to be happy in a good man’s 
love, though her own sun had set in deepest gloom, and 
there was a osaseless moan in her heart for poor Phil, 



412 


THE YELLO W FE VER. 


while the load of humiliation which had come so suddenly 
upon her seemed sometimes greater than she could bear. 

“ If I only had something to do which would make me 
forget myself a little I should be happier,” she thought, 
as morning after morning she awoke to the same monot- 
onous round of duties, or, rather, occupation of trying to 
kill the time. 

She had no real duties, for everything pertaining to 
the household arrangements was managed by Aunt Judy, 
who petted her young mistress as if she had been 
a queen, while both Pierre and Axie, watched vigilantly 
to anticipate every want before it was framed in words. 

Mrs. Strong was absent on her plantation near Lake 
Jackson, and thus Queenie was left almost entirely 
alone and free to let her morbid fancies feed upon them- 
selves. She did need something to do, and at last the 
something came, though in a very different form from 
w^hat she would have chosen had it been hers to choose. 

As the summer advanced it grew hotter and hottei 
until the nights w’ere like the days, and there came no 
breath of air to relieve the dreadful heat. There were 
rumors of sunstroke here and there, and talk of the sick- 
ness which must ensue if the state of things continued. 
And still in middle Florida it was comparatively healthy, 
and the air was free from malaria ; but farther to the 
north, where a city spread itself over miles of territory, 
an ominous cloud was gathering. Once before the town 
had been scourged as with the plague, and the terror- 
stricken inhabitants had fled to the country for refuge 
from the pestilence, which oftentimes overtook them on 
the road and claimed them for its victims. And now it 
W'as coming again — was lurking in the corners of the 
lanes and alleys, where poverty and filth held high car- 
nival — was breathed in the poisonous air which brooded 
over the doomed city like a pall, until at last it was 
th^re, and men spoke the awful word to each other in 
whisper.s, while their voices shook with fear and their 


THE YELLO W EE VER, 


413 


hearts sank as they remembered the past and thought of 
the possible futuie. The yelloio fever was in their midst, 
and though as yet confined to the poorer classes and the 
unfrequented parts of the city, the people knew too well 
that, like fire applied to cotton, it would spread until 
there was no house however grand, or spot however ca- 
ciusive, which its shadow would not reach, its horrid 
presence threaten. The city was doomed, and as ilie 
days went by and the disease and danger grew, and 
the death roll increased, and men who walked the streets 
to-day were dead to-morrow, a panic seized upon the 
terror-stricken inhabitants, who fied before the horror as 
those who live on a frontier in time of war flee from the 
rapidly advancing enemy. Then it was, when the city 
was almost deserted, that the cry went up for help for 
the sick and the dying. And the North heard that cry as 
Vvcll as the South, and poured out her treasures with a 
most liberal hand, and “ help for Memphis” was the 
watchword everywhere. Physicians were wanted, with 
nurses for the sick and deserted ones, and this demand it 
was which tried to the very quick the courage of those 
on whom it was made. 

It was an easy matter to give of one’s substance to 
the needy, to drop the money into the boxes placed 
everywhere for that purpose, but to take one’s life in his 
hands and go into the very jaws of deatli, where the air 
was full of infection and the ^^ery flowers seemed to ex- 
hale a deadly poison, was a different thing But there 
were hundreds of brave men and women who, from the 
New England hills, and the prairies of the West, and the 
pine glades of the South, went to the rescue, and by tlieir 
noble heroism proved themselves more Christ-like than 
human. In her far-off Florida home Queenie heard th« 
cry for help, and to herself she said : 

“ Here is something for me to do. Here is my chance, 
and I’ll take it.” 

I lad siie known just what yellow fever was, she migh< 


414 


THE YELLO W EE VER. 


have hesitated ere she made her decision, or having 
made it, might have drawn back from it at the frantic 
entreaties of Pierre, who, when she communicated her 
intention to him, fell upon his knees and with blanched 
face and chattering teeth begged her not to go where 
there was certain death for them both, for his place was 
with her : if she went, he must go also. Axie, too, tried 
tc dissuade her from her purpose, but Queenie would 
not listen. 

“ I am not afraid,” she said. “ I shall not take the 
fever. I never catch things as some people do. I sat three 
hours once with a servant who had the small-pox, and 
who died two hours after, and I did not take it. Some- 
body must go, and I have nobody to care much if I should 
die. Nobody but Margery, and she would say I was 
doing right. So pack my trunk, like a good, brave girl, 
for I must beolf to-morrow. Something which I canno*" 
resist is calling me to Memphis. What it is I cannot 
tell, but I must go.” 

And so the next night the northern train for Savannah 
took in it Pierre and Queenie, bound for the fever- 
smitten city where the people were dying so fast and 
help was sorely needed. By some strange coincidence 
while Queenie was making up her mind logo to Memphis, 
Christine La Rue was already there. She, too, had 
heard the cry for help, and it roused her from the state 
bordering on insanity into which she was falling. 

“ I am going,” she said, to Margery, “ for I feel that 
I can do some good. I am not a bad nurse, and if I can 
save one life or ease one dying pillow, maybe it will atone 
to God for some of my misdeeds. I am not afraid of the 
fever, and if I should take it and die, better so than end 
my own life, as I am often tempted to do.” 

Her mind was made up, and Margery did not oppose 
her, but promised her plenty of money in case it should 
be needed. And so the mother and the daughter were 
bound for the same work — the one to have something 1.0 


THE YELLO IV FE VER, 


415 


do, the other to atone. It was a fancy of Mrs. La Rue to 
assume the gray dress of a lay sister, as she felt freer and 
safer in this garb, and could go where she pleased. It 
was not her wish to be hampered by any restrictions ; 
and when the physicians saw how efficient and fearless 
she was, they let her take her own course and do as she 
liked. 

Sister Christine was the name by which she was known^ 
and many a poor dying wretch blessed her with his last 
breath, and commended to her care some loved one 
struggling in the next room, perhaps, with the dread de- 
stroyer. Money Christine had in plenty, for Margery 
kept her supplied, and it was spent like water where it 
was of any avail, so that Sister Christine became a power 
in the desolated city, and was known in every street and 
alley of the town. Queenie had written to Marger\" of 
her intentions, and with a cry of horror on her lips Mar- 
gery read the letter and then telegraphed to Christine : 

“ Queenie is or will be there. Find her at once and 
send her away. Quee^iie must not die*' 

There was a faint smile about Christine’s lips as she 
read the dispatch, and then whispered to herself, “No, 
Queenie must not die,” while her pulse quickened a little 
as she thought what happiness it would be to nurse the 
fever-tossed girl, should she be stricken down, and bring 
her back to life and health. 

“I’ll find her, if she is here, and keep a watch over 
her,” she said ; and two days after they met together 
high up in a tenement-house, where, in a dark, ciftie 
room, two negro children lay dead, and the mother ’F.is 
dying. 

Queenie was doing her work bravely and well, seek- 
ing out the worst cases, and by her sweetness and tender- 
ness almost bringing back the life after it had gone out. 
Always attended by Pierre, who carried with him every 
disinfectant of which he had ever heard, she went fear- 
lessly from place to place wJ'iere she was needed most. 


4i6 


THE YELLO W FE VER. 


but lound frequently that Sister Christine had been .heio 
before her Naturally she felt some curiosity with regard 
to this mysterious person, whose praises were on every 
lip, and also a great desire to see her. 

“ If she could impart to me some of her skill, I might 
do more good and save more lives,” she said to Pierre 
and there was a thought of the woman in her heart as 
she bent over the dying negress, wiping the black vomit 
from her lips and the sweat-drops from her brow. ^ She 
might have saved her, perhaps,” she said, just as the 
door opened and the gray sister came in. 

Far gone as was the poor colored woman, she still had 
enough of sight and sense to recognize the new-comer, 
and something like a cry of joy escaped her as she man- 
aged to say : 

“ Sister Christine ! ” 

In an instant Queenie sprang to her feet, and mother 
and daughter stood confronting each other for a moment, 
neither speaking, but each looking into the other’s eyes 
with an eager questioning look. In Christine’s there 
was love, and tenderness, and anxiety and fear, all 
blended together, while in Queenie’s there was great sur- 
prise and something like gladness, too. She was the first 
to speak. 

Christine,” she said, “ Sister Christine they call 
you, though I never dreamed it was you, how came you 
here, and when ? ” 

Christine told her how and when, and then repeated 
Margery’s message — to find her and send her away. 

“ She says Queenie must not die, and I say so, too 
Will you go before it is too late?” she asked, and 
Queenie answered her : 

“No, my place is here, and I am glad you are here, 
too. It makes me feel safer and stronger.” 

“Oh, Queenie, Queenie, God bless you for saying 
even so much,” and the woman who had stood un- 
daunted by many a deatii bed trembled like a leaf as she 


THE YELLOW EE FEE, 


417 


snatched Queenie’s hand to her lips, and then went 
swiftly from the room, where her services were no longer 
needed, for while she was speaking the negress was dead. 

That night a telegram went to Margery: “She will 
not go away, and she sM/I not dieT 

So there was nothing for Margery to do but pray 
earnestly and unceasingly i for the young girl who 
seemed to bear a charmed life, so fearlessly did she meet 
every peril and overcome every difficulty. Almost as 
popular as Sister Christine, she was hailed with delight 
everywhere, and more than one owed his recovery to her 
timely aid. At last, however, she began to flag a little, 
and was not quite as strong to endure as she had been. 
There were about her no symptoms of the fever ; she was 
only tired and worn, she said to Pierre, as she sat in her 
room one evening. The day had been damp and sultry, 
and the night had closed in with rain and fog, while the 
air was heavy as if laden with noxious vapors. Queenie 
had thrown oT her street dress and put on a comfortable 
wrapper, when there came a quick, sharp ring, and 
Pierre brought her a note, or rather a bit of paper torn 
from a pocket tablet, and on which was written in 
French: 


“Come immediately to No. 40, street. You are 

needed there. “ Christine." 

The handwriting was very uneven, as if penned in 
great excitement, and as Queenie looked at it there 
swept over her an undefinable apprehension of some- 
thing, she could not tell what— a feeling that this call 
from Christine on such a night was no ordinary call, 
and the need no ordinary one. 

“ I believe I am growing nervous myself, and that will 
never do," she thought, as she felt a faintness stealing 
over her and a kind of chill creeping througl' her veins, 


THE YELLO W FE VER. 


communicated, she belived, by the message she had re- 
ceived. 

Never before had Christine sent for her, but, on the 
contrary, had always tried to shield and spare her as 
much as possible from fatigue or exposure; but this 
" Come, you are needed,” was imperative, and, with 
trembling hands and a strange sinking from what she 
was to do, she donned her usual every-day attire, and 
with Pierre started for No. 40. It was a private hotel, 
which had remained free from infection until within 
a day or two, when the fever had suddenly broken 
out in its most malignant form. Two of the inmates 
had already died, one the wife of the proprietor, who 
with his guests had fled in dismay, leaving behind a 
young man who had come to the city the previous day, and 
who was now lying senseless in an upper chamber, where 
Christine had found him, burning with fever and raving 
with delirium. It was a very bad case, aggravated by 
nervous excitement and fatigue ; but she had done for 
him what she could, and then had sent for Queenie, 
whom she met on the landing outside the sick-room, 
and to whom she explained why she had sent for her. 

“ He is very sick,” she said, “ and needs the closest 
watching, and I know of no one who would be as faith- 
ful as you, for I must be elsewhere to-night. This 
weather has increased the danger tenfold, and there is 
no telling where it will end.” 

Then she gave some minute directions with regard to 
the treatment of the patient who, she said, was sleeping, 
and must be allowed to sleep as long as possible; She 
seemed greatly excited as she talked, and there was a 
glitter in her eyes, and occasionally an incoherency in 
her manner of expressing herself, especially with regard 
to the sick man, which made Queenie look curiously at 
her, wondering if she were altogether in her right mind. 
When all had been said which was necessary to say 
Christine still stood irresolute, as it were, ooking fix- 


THE YELL OW FE VER 


419 


edly at Queenie ; then, with a sudden, upward move- 
aient of her arms, she wound them around the young 
girl’s neck, and kissing her forehead, said : 

“ God bless you, my child, and keep you, and all 
those whom you love, from harm.” 

There were bright red spots upon her cheeks, but the 
lips which touched Queenie were cold as ice, as w"as the 
hand which accidentally brushed Quecnie’s cheek. Or- 
dinarily Queenie would have resented this liberty, but she 
dik not now. She was too much excited to resent any 
thing, and she was so glad afterward that it was so — glad 
that she had some thought and care for Christine, to 
■whom she said, as she felt her lips and hand : 

“ How cold you are, and why do you tremble so ? 
You surely must be ill. Don’t go out to-night ; there 
must be plenty of vacant rooms here. Stay and rest 
yourself. We cannot let you die.” 

She had one of Christine’s cold hands in her own, 
chafing and rubbing it as she spoke, but when she said, 
so kindly, “ We cannot let you die,” the woman drew it 
away suddenly, and bursting into a paroxysm of tears, 
exclaimed : 

“ Better so ; better for me to die ; but for you, oh ! 
Queenie, you must live — you and Oh, my child, sum- 

mon all your strength and courage ; you will need it. 
There is hard work ahead for you. Do you think you 
can meet it ?” 

Queenie did not know what the woman meant, but 
she was greatly moved and agitated, and shook from 
head to foot with a nameless terror. 

“ You, too, are cold are trembling, and that will never 
do. Drink this,” Christine said, pouring from a flask 
which she always carried with her a quantity of brandy, 
and offering it to Queenie, who swallowed it in one 
draught. 

The brandy steadied her nerves, and after s anding a 
moment watching Christine as .she went slowly down the 


420 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


stairs, holding to the banisters, like one suffering from 
great physical weakness, she turned toward the door ol 
the sick room, and opening it softly, went in. 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 

T was a large, handsome room, but it seemed 
gloomy and cheerless now, with only a night- 
lamp burning on the table, casting weird 
shadows here and there, and only partially 
revealing the form upon the bed of a tall young man, 
who lay with his face turned from the light and half 
buried in the pillow. Outside the counterpane one arm 
and hand were lying, and Queenie noticed that the latter 
was white and shapely as a woman’s, and noticed, too, 
the mass of light brown, slightly curling hair, which 
clustered around the sick man’s head and sent ai\ 
indescribable thrill through her veins, as of something 
familiar. The man was young, she knew, though she 
had not seen his face, and dared not see it lest she should 
disturb him. 

“ Let him sleep ; it will do him good and keep back 
the dreadful vomit,” Christine had said, and not for 
worlds would Queenie disobey her. She held a human 
life in her keeping, and with her finger on her lip to 
Pierre, who crouched almost at her feet, she seated hei- 
self in an arm-chair just where she could see the outline 
of the figure upon the bed, and there for hours she sal 
and watci.'ed, and listened to the irregiixar breathing, 
wh -e every kind of wild fancy danced through her 
biain, and her limbs began at last to feel piickly 



THE OCCUPANT OF NO, 40. 421 

and numb, and a sense of cold and faintness .0 steal 
over her. 

The air in the room was hot and oppressive though 
the windows were opened wide. Outside, the rain was 
falling heavily, and the sky as black as ink ; there was 
no sound to break the awful stillness, except the occa- 
sional tread of some physician or nurse on duty, or the 
crash of distant wheels, whose meaning Queenie under- 
stood full well, shuddering as she thought of the rapid 
burials which the peril made necessary, and remembering 
what she had read of the great plague in London, where 
the death-cart roiled nightly through the street, while the 
dreadful cry was heard : 

“ Bring out your dead ; bring out your dead." 

The words kept repeating themselves over and over 
in Queenie’s mind until her brain became confused ; the 
present faded away into the far-olf past, and she was one 
of those weary watchers in London, listening to the cry : 

“ Bring out your dead." 

And she was bringing hers — was carrying the young 
man whose long limbs dragged upon the floor, and whose 
head drooped upon her shoulder, while his dead face, not 
yet cold, touched hers with a caressing motion which 
brought with it a thought of poor Phil, lying beneath the 
Indian waters. 

It was a horrid nightmare, and Queenie struggled 
with it a moment, and then awoke with a cry of Phil 
upon her lips — a cry so loud that the sleeper upon the 
bed started a little, and moaned, and said something in- 
distinctly, and moved uneasily, then settled again into 
slumber, and all was quiet as ever. 

But Queenie stood erect upon her feet, rigid as a 
piece ot marble, and almost as white, while her eyes, 
which seemed to Pierre to shoot out gleams of fire, were 
turned wildly toward the form lying so motionless across 
the room, with the white, shapely hand still outside the 
CO inte pane, and the light brown wavy hair upon the 


422 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


pillow. He had spoken — had called a name, which the 
excited girl had recognized as her own. She could not 
he mistaken. In answer to her cry for Phil the fever pa- 
tient had aroused a little and responded : 

“ Queenie.” 

She was sure of it. He might not have meant her^ it 
is true. There were other Queenies in the world, no 
doubt, but he had called her name — this man, who in her 
dream she was carrying to the death-cart, and who might 
perhaps, go there when the morning dawned. 

There was a clock upon the mantel, and Queenie saw 
that it was half-past two. The early summer morning 
would soon break, and then she would see the face of this 
stranger who had called for Queenie, and whose head 
and hair were so like her lost Phil’s that, as she looked, 
with straining, eager eyes, and whirling brain, it seemed 
to her at last that it was Phil himself — Phil, drowned 
and dead, perhaps, but still Phil, come back to her in 
some incomprehensible manner, just to mock her a 
moment, and then to be snatched away again forever. 
But she would see him first distinctly, would know 
if it were a phantom or a reality lying there upon 
the bed within her reach, for she had advanced a few . 
steps forward, and could have touched the head upon 
the pillow. 

“Pierre,” she said, at last, when she could endure the 
suspense no longer — “ Pierre,” and her voice sounded to 
herself like the echo of something a thousand miles away, 

“ am I going mad, or is that — is that — ” and she pointed 
to the tall form on the bed. 

Not comprehending her in the least, Pierre stared 
at her, with a great fear that her mind was really un- 
settled by all the terrible scenes through which she had 
passed. 

“ Is it what ? ” he asked, coming to her side, and she 
replied : 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


423 


“ Bring the light. I must see the face of this young 
man. I cannot wait till morning.” 

“But, mademoiselle,” Pierre remonstrated, “think of 
the danger to him. Christine's orders were to let him 
sleep ; he was not to be disturbed.” 

“ Nor shall I disturb liim ; but I shall see him. Bring 
the light ! ” Queenie said, peremptorily, as she moved to 
the other side of the bed, toward which the sick man's 
face was turned. 

Carefully pushing down the pillow, so as to bring 
the features more distinctly to view, Queenie stood for 
one brief instant gazing upon them ; then, turning to 
Pierre, she whispered : 

“ Nearer, Pierre ; hold the lamp a little nearer, 
please.” 

He obeyed her, and as the full rays of the light fell 
upon the white, pinched face of the sleeper, Queenie 
threw her arms high in the air, and, in a voice Pierre 
would never have recognized as hers, cried out : 

“ Oh, Pierre, Pierre ! it is — it is — my Phil — come back 
to me again ! Christine ! Christine ! come, and help !” 

It was a loud, wailing cry, and the next moment 
Queenie lay across the foot of the bed, where she had 
fallen in a death-like swoon, while over her bent Chris- 
tine. She had not left the house at all, but had sat below, 
waiting for some such denouement when the truth should 
become known to Queenie. 

Christine had found the young man late the previous 
afternoon, and recognized him at once, experiencing 
such a shock as had set every nerve quivering, and 
made her feel that at last her own strength was' giving 
way. To save him for Queenie was her great desire, 
and, with a prayer on her lips, and a prayer in her 
heart, she worked as she had never worked beforo to 
allay the burning fever and quiet his disordered mind 

Once, during a lucid interval, he looked ‘nto her face, 
and knew her. 


424 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


“ Christine,” he said, faintly, “ where is Queen le ? 
I came to find her. Don’t let me die till I nave seen 
her.” 

*' Queenie is here. I will send for her at once. Do 
not be afraid ; I will not let you die. Your case is not 
very bad,” Christine replied, speaking thus emphatical- 
ly and against her own convictions, because she saw how 
frightened he was himself, and knew that this would 
only augment the disease and lessen his chances for re- 
covery. 

“ Keep very quiet, and I’ll soon have you well,” she 
said, and Pliil did whatever she bade him do, though his 
mind began to wander again, and he talked constantly of 
Queenie, whom he had come to find. 

At last, however, he fell away to sleep, and then it was 
that Christine sent for Queenie, and establishing her in 
the room, went out into the adjoining chamber and 
waited, knowing that sooner or later she would be 
needed. All through the weary hours which preceded 
Queenie’s cry for help she sat alone in the darkness, 
alternately shaking with cold and burning with fever, 
while in her heart was a feeling amounting to certainty 
that her work was done, that the deadly faintness stealing 
over her at intervals, and making her so sick and weak, 
was a precursor of the end. But she must live long 
enough to save Philip Rossiter, and give him back to 
Queenie, who might think more kindly of her when she 
was gone. So she fought back her symptoms bravely, 
and rubbed her cold, damp face when it was the coldest, 
and then leaned far out of the open window into the fall- 
ing rain when it was the hottest. 

And thus the time passed on until her quick ear 
caught the sound of voices and footsteps in the sick- 
room, and she heard Queenie’s wild cry iox her as if in 
that hour of peril she was the one person in all the world 
of whom there was need. Queenie had turned to her at 
last as the child turns to its mother in peril, and with 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO, 40. 


4^5 


swift feet Christine went to the rescue, and a most before 
Pierre knew she was there, she had the unconscious girl 
in her arms and was bearing her into the room, where 
for hours she had waited so patiently. Fixing her in a 
safe and upright position upon a cushion, she ran back 
to Phil, who, she knew, must be her first and principal 
care. 

When Queenie’s shriek echoed through the room so 
near to him, he had roused from his sleep, and was 
moaning and talking to himself, without, apparently, 
any real consciousness as to v/here he was. But Chris- 
tine's soothing hands, and the medicine she administered 
quieted him, and leaving him in Pierre’s care, she went 
back to Queenie, who was recovering from her swoon. 

“ Tell me,” she gasped, when she was able to speak, 
“ Was it a dream, or was it Phil ? Tell me, Christine, is 
it Phil, and will he die ?” 

“It is Phil,” Christine replied, “saved from the sea, 
I know not how, only that he is here, that he came seek- 
ing for you, and I found him with the fever, late yester- 
day afternoon, and did for him what I could. Then I 
sent for you, and the rest you know. Only be quiet 
now. I do not think he will die.” 

“ Oh, save him, save him, and you shall have my love 
forever. I have been cold and proud, but I will be so 
no longer if you give me back my Phil,” Queenie said, 
with choking sobs, as she knelt at Christine’s feet and 
clasped the hem of her dress. 

“ I will do w’hat I can,” Christine replied, while again 
through every nerve throbbed the old, sick feeling which 
she could not put aside, even in her exquisite joy that 
Queenie might at last be won. 

“ Too late ; it has come too la"e,” she thought to her- 
self, while to Queenie she said : I must go to him now, 
for what I do must be done quickly. A few hours later 
and it will be too late.” 

So th,ey w^ent together to the sick-room, where Phil 


4^6 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40 


lay V7ilh his face turned more fully to the light and 
showing distinctly how pinched and pallid it was. Had 
Queenie’s own life depended upon it, she could not 
have forborne going up to him and softly kissing his 
pale forehead ; then she knelt down beside him, and so 
close to him that her dark hair touched the curls of light 
brown as she buried her face in her hands, and Christine 
knew that she was praying earnestly that he might be 
spared to her. At last, just as the dawn was breaking 
and the first gray of the mor ning was stealing into the 
room, he moved as if about to waken, and with a quick, 
imperative movement of her hand Christine put Queenie 
behind her, saying as she did so : “ He must not see you 
yet. Keep out of his sight till I tell you to come.” 

Fearful lest she should attract his attention if she left 
the room, Queenie crouched upon the floor, close beside 
the bed, and waited with a throbbing heart for the mo- 
ment when she might speak and claim her love. Phil 
was better ; the long sleep had done him good, but there 
was a drowsiness over him still, and he only opened his 
eyes a moment, and, seeing Christine bending over him, 
smiled gratefully upon her, and said: 

“You are so good to me.” 

Then he took the draught she gave him and slept 
again, this time quietly and sweetly as a child, while 
Queenie sat upon the floor, fearing to move or stir lest 
she should disturb him. Slowly the minutes dragged on 
until at last it was quite light in the room. The heavy 
rain had ceased ; the dense fog had lifted, and the air 
Vvhich came in at the window was cool and pure, and 
seemed to have in it something of life and invigoration. 

“ The weather has changed, thank God,” Christine 
murmured, while Queenie, too, whispered, “ Thank God I 
thank God !” 

Phil must have felt the change, for he breathed more 
naturally and there came a faint color to his lips, and at 
last, j 1 st as a ray of sunlight stole into the room and 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


427 


danced upon the wall above his head, he woke to perfect 
consciousness, and, stretching his hand toward Christine 
said: 

“ You have saved my life and I thank you ; but for 
you I should have died when the dreadful sickness came 
How long have I been here, and where is Queenie? I 
dreamed she was here.” 

As the tones of the voice she had never expected to 
hear again fell upon her ear Queenie could no longer 
restrain herself, but springing up, she bent over Phil and 
said: 

“I am here — Phil, my love^ my darlings and nothing 
shall part us again. I am not your cousin, and I can love 
you now.” 

She was kneeling beside him, with one arm under his 
neck, while with the other hand she caressed his face, 
and kissing him passionately continued: 

“ O, Phil, I thought you were dead, and it broke 
my heart, for I did love you all the time, and I found it 
out when it was too late and you were gone, and I 
mourned for you so much, and all the brightness went 
out from my life ; but it will come back again with you, 
my darling ! my darling !” 

Her tears were falling like rain upon his face, and 
her voice was choked with sobs, as she made this avowal 
of her love, without a shadow of shame or feeling that 
she was doing anything unmaidenly. Phil was hers. 
Nothing could change that, or his love for her. She 
"v-as as sure of him as she was that she breathed, and she 
had no hesitancy in pouring out the full measure of her 
affection for him. Both Christine and Pierre had stolen 
from the room, leaving the lovers alone in that first bliss- 
ful moment of their reunion. Fora time Phil lay per- 
fectly still and took her caresses and kisses in silence. 
Then summoning all his strength, he wound his arms 
around the little girl, and hugging her close to him wh*’- 
pered : 


428 THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


“ Heav^en can scarcely be better than this Oh, 
Queenie ! my darling ! my pet !” 

He was very weak, and Queenie saw it, and drawing 
herself from him said ; 

“You must not talk any more now. You must get 
well, and then I can hear it all — where you have been 
and why you are not dead. Oh, Phil, it was so horrible 
— everything which has happened to me since you went 
away. I am nobody — nobody^ Phil ; no name, no right 
to be born, and I was once so proud. Did they tell you 
Phil ? Do you know who I am ?” 

“Yes, they told me; I know, poor little Queenie,” 
Phil replied, with a tighter clasp of the hand which lay 
in his. 

She did not ask him if it would make any difference 
with his love. She knew it would not. She had always 
felt sure of Phil ; he was hers for ever, and the old joy 
began to come back, and the old light sparkled in her 
eyes, which shone like stars as she went on : 

“ It was so dreadful when I found it out, and I wanted 
to die, because you, too, were dead, or I thought you 
were, and I used to whisper to you in the dark nights, 
when I could not sleep, and I thought maybe you would 
come and let me know in some way that you were sorry 
for me. Where were you, Phil, when I was wanting you 
so much ?” 

“Very, very far away, but I cannot tell you now,” 
said Phil, knowing himself that he must not talk longer 
then ; but he would not let her leave him ; he wanted 
her there beside him, where he could touch her hands, 
and look into her face and beaming eyes, which dazzled 
and bewildered him with their brightness. 

So Queenie sat by him all that morning, seldom speak- 
ing to him, but often bending over him to kiss his fore- 
head or hands, and occasionally murmuring ; 

“ Dear Phil, and I am so glad — so happy. Nothing 
will ever trouble me again.” 


THE OCCUPANT OF NO. 40. 


429 


“ Not even the Fergusons ?” Phil ausweied 1 er once, 
with his old, teasing smile, which made him so like the 
Phil of other days that Queenie laughed aloud, and^ 
shaking her head gayly, said : 

“No, not even grandma’s purple gloves can ever 
worry me again. Oh, Phil, I have repented so bitterly 
of all my pride, and I shall never, never be so any more — 
shall never be angry with you, or any one, or indulge in 
one of my moods ! I wish I could make you understand 
how changed I am, for I see you do not quite believe 
me. 

Nor did he, though he smiled lovingly upon her, and 
lifting his hand feebly smoothed her fair round cheek, 
where her blushes were burning so brightly. He knew 
that Queenie could not change her nature any more than 
the leopard can change his spots — knew that at times she 
would be the same little willful, imperious girl she bad 
always been, defying his authority and setting at naught 
his wishes. And he would not have her otherwise if he 
could ; he should not know her if the claws were always 
sheathed and she was gentle and sweet as she was now. 
Loving and true she would always be, and so repentant 
when her moods were over that it would be well worth 
his while to bear with them occasionally, as he was sure 
to have to do. But he did not tell her so ; he did not tell 
her anything, for he was too weak to talk, so he only 
looked his love and happiness through his eyes, which 
rested constantly upon her face, until at last even that be- 
came to him as something seen through a mist, not alto- 
gether real, and he again fell into a quiet sleep, with his 
hftDC resting in Queenie’s. 


430 


SISTER CHRISTINE. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 

SISTER CHRISTINE. 

absorbed had Queenie been with P.iil that she 
had failed to notice anything which was 
passing around her, or to think of anything 
except her great happiness. She knew that 
some time during the morning Pierre had brought her 
coifpeand rolls, which he had managed to find somewhere 
near, he said, and which he made her eat. He had also 
given her some orders with regard to Phil’s medicines, 
saying that Madame La Rue bade him do so, and to say 
that Miss Hetherton must be very particular not to forget. 
And Queenie had not forgotten that, though all else was 
a blank to her until Phil went to sleep, and she sat 
watching him and wondering by what strange chance 
the sea had given up its dead and restored him to her. 
Then, as she heard a city clock strike eleven, she began 
to think how fast the hours had sped, and to wonder a 
little at Christine’s prolonged absence from the room. 
And still that did not surprise her much, for she naturally 
supposed she had gone to some other sick-bed, where she 
was needed more than there with Phil. 

“ There is a great deal of good in her, and I must 
always be kind to her because of what she has done for 
Phil,” she thought, and she felt glad that all the old 
bitterness and resentment were gone, and that although 
she could not think of Christine as her mother, she could 
think of her quietly and calmly as of one who, if she had 
greatly sinned, had also greatly suffered for the sin and 
was trying to atone. “ Phil and I will take care of her, 
though she cannot, of course, live with us. She will not 
expect that;” she thought, and her mind was busy with 
castles of the future, when Pierre looked in again just 



SISTER CHRISTINE, 


4JI 

for an instant, and seeing Phil asleep, shut the door 
at once and went out again before she could ask him a 
question. 

But in the glimpse she got of him, it seemed to her 
that there was an unusual look of concern upon his face, 
while through the open door she caught a faint sound of 
voices in the distance, and footsteps hurrying here and 
there. What was it ? she asked herself, and felt tempted 
to go out and «?ee, but Phil’s hand was clasping hers and 
she would net free herself from it lest she should awaken 
him. So she still sat on till the clock struck twelve and 
the hum of voices was occasionally borne to her ears 
by the opening of some door further up the hail. There 
was somebody in the other part of the house besides 
Pierre — somebody sick, too ; judging from the sounds, 
and she grew so nervous at last and curious upon the 
subject, that she gradually withdrew her hand from 
Phil’s, and rising softly was about to leave the room, 
when Pierre looked in again, and this time she could 
not be mistaken with regard to the expression on his 
face, which was very pale and troubled as it looked wist- 
fully at her. 

“What is it, Pierre?” she asked in a whisper, going 
close to him and observing that he stood against the 
door as if to keep her from passing. “ Whose voices 
do I hear, and is any one sick ? 1 was just coming to 

ascertain. Let me pass, please.” 

“No, no, mademoiselle. Don’t come. She said yo’i 
were not to know. We are doing all we can for her” 
Pierre cried, in great alarm, thus letting out the secret 
he had been told to keep. 

“ Do all you can for her? For whom? Who is it 
that is sick, and said I must not know ?” Oueenie asked, 
as she put the old man aside, and opening the door, 
drew him with her into the hall “ Now tell me the 
truth,” she continued. “ Is some one sick whom I 
ought to see ? Is it — Christine ? ” 


432 


SISTER CHRISTINE. 


‘“Yes," he answered, “it is Madame Christine, and 
she is very bad. She will die, the doctor fears, but she 
said you must not know. You must not leave Mr. Ros- 
siter for her and she sent me many times to see how he 
was.” 

Pierre was right, for in a small room at the end ol 
the hall Christine La Rue was dying. She who had 
braved so much and borne so much and passed through 
so many dangers unscathed, had at last succumbed to 
the terrible disease which she knew was creeping upon 
her, when she sent for Queenie to share her vigils by 
Phil’s bedside. 

“ I must not give up yet ; I must endure and bear 
until he is out of danger. I must save him for her 
sake,” she thought, and fought down with a desperate 
courage and iron v/ill the horrid sensations stealing 
over her so fast and making her sometimes almost 
beside herself with dizziness and languor. 

But when the crisis was past and she felt sure Phil 
was safe, she could endure it no longer, and with one 
long, lingering look at Queenie, whom she felt she should 
never see again, she started for her own lodgings. 

“I can die there alone and so trouble no one,” she 
thought, as she made her way to the staircase. 

But on the first landing her strength failed her and 
she fell upon the floor, where she lay, or rather sat in a 
half upright position, leaning against the wall with her 
face in her hands, until a voice roused her and she looked 
up to see a man standing before her and asking who she 
was and why she was there. It was the proprietor of 
the house, who, ashamed of his cowardice, had returned 
and going first through the rooms below where every- 
thing was as he had left it, started to ascend the stair to 
the chambers above, when he came upon Christine, whom 
he had often seen on her errands of mercy, but whom he 
did not recognize until she looked up and spoke to him. 
Then he knew her, and exclaimed : 


SISTER CHRISTINE, 


433 


“Sister Christine! What are you doing here, and 
what is the matter with you ?” 

“I am sick — I have the fever,” she replied ; “and if 
you are afraid, leave me at once.” 

He was mortally afraid, but he was not so unmanly 
as to leave a woman like Christine to die uncared for at 
the head of his own staircase, and helping her to the 
nearest room where there was a bed, he started for a 
physician. Meeting in the lower hall with Pierre, who 
had been out for Queenie’s coffee, and who explained to 
him that his house held another patient, he told him of 
Christine and where she was, bidding him look after her 
until help came from some other quarter. 

But Chiistiiie was past all human aid. The disease 
had attacked her in its worst form, and she knew she 
should not live to see another sun setting. She was very 
calm, however, and only anxious for Queenie and Phil. 

“They must not be disturbed — they must not know,” 
she said to Piene, to whom she gave some orders cpn- 
cerning Phil’s medicines, which Pierre took to his 
mistress. 

“Don’t tell her I am sick ; don’t let her know until I 
am dead. Then iell her I was so glad to die and leave 
her free, and that I loved her so much, and am so sorry 
for the past,” she said to Pierre, who, half distracted 
with all he was passing through, wrung his hands 
nervously, and promised all she required. 

But when Queenie began to suspect, and insisted upon 
knowing the truth, he told her, adding, as he saw her 
about to dart away from him toward Christine’s room : 

“ You better not go there ; she does not need you. 
One of the sisters is with her, and she said you must stay 
with monsieur. All her anxiety is for him and you — 
none for herself. She seems so glad to die !” 

He mio:hL as well have talked to the wind for all the 
heed Queenie gave him. Bidding him sit by Phil until 
he awoke, and tiien come for her if she was needed, she 


434 


SISTER CHRISTINE, 


went quickly to the room where Christine lay, with death 
stamped on every lineament of her face, but with a 
calm peaceful expression upon it, which told that she 
was glad for tiie end so fast approaching. 

When Queenie entered, her eyes were closed, but 
they opened quickly, and a smile of joy and surprise 
brcke over her face, when Queenie exclaimed : 

“ Oh, Christine, you are sick, and you did not let me 
know it, or I should have come before !” 

For an instant Christine's lips quivered in a pitiful 
kind of way ; then the great tears rolled down her 
cheeks as she whispered faintly : 

“ I avi si(;k — I am dying ; but I did not want you to 
know. I wished to spare you and him. How is he 
now ?” 

Queenie explained that he was sleeping quietly, 
and that she believed all danger had passed. Then, sit- 
ting down by the bedside, she took the hot, burning 
hands in hers, and rubbed and bathed them as carefully 
and gently as if they had been Phil’s, instead of this 
woman’s, toward whom she had felt so bitter and resent- 
ful. All that was gone now, and she was conscious of a 
strange feeling stirring within her as she sat and met tiie 
dying eyes fixed upon her with so much yearning tender- 
ness and love. This woman was her mother. Nothing 
could change that ; and whatever her faults had been, she 
was a good woman now, Queenie believed ; and, as the 
dim eyes met hers so constantly and appealingly, she 
bent close to the pillow, and said : 

Mother^ I am sorry I was so unforgiving and hard. 
It came so suddenly. Forgive me if you can.” 

A low, pitiful cry was Christine’s only answer for 
a moment, and then she said: 

“f have nothing to forgive; the wrong was all my 
own, and I deserved your scorn. But oh, Queenie, my 
child, you can never know how I was deceived, or how 
wholly i trusted your father ,vhom I loved so much, and 


SISTER CHRISTINE. 


435 


after I had kept Margery’s birth a secret, I must go on 
concealing. There was no other way. He would have 
murdered me, or left me to starve with you. Oh, Margery. 
Margery, my other child ! and, Queen ie, you will not 
mind if I say my dearest child, for she has been all the 
world to me. Tell her so, Queenie ; tell her I blessed 
her with my last breath, and loved her with all my 
strength, and soul, and might. She is so sweet, so 
good, so true! God bless her, and make her perfectly 
happy !” 

During this conversation, which was carried on in 
French, the sister whom the physician had sent to attend 
Christine stood looking on wonderingly, and never 
dreaming of the relationship between the two. She was, 
however, anxious lest so much talking and excitement 
should be injurious to her patient, and she said so to 
Queenie, who replied: 

“ Yes, you are right. I should try to quiet her noAV 
If you will be kind enough to look after the young man 
in No. 40, I will stay with Sister Christine. She wishes 
:t to be so. She was my nurse in France. I knew her 
— her — ” 

Queenie hesitated a moment, and then added: 

“ Knew her daughter. She was talking of her to me ” 

This satisfied the woman, who, bowing assent, went 
from the room, leaving the two alone. 

For a time Christine lay perfectly still, with her eyes 
closed, but her lips were constantly moving, and Queenie 
knew that she was praying, for she caught the words: 

“Forgive for Christ’s sake, who forgave the thief at 
the very last hour !” 

And all the while Queenie held the hot hands in hers 
and occasionally smoothed the gray hair back from the 
pale brov7 where the sweat of death was gathering so fast. 
At last Christine opened her eyes and looked fixedly at 
Queenie, who said to her very gently: 


43 ^ 


SISTER CHRISTINE. 


“ WliaL is it ? Do you wish to tcil me something?” 

“Yes,” the dying woman answered, faintly. “I hope 
1 am forgiven, and that I shall find rest beyond the 
grave. I used to pray so much in the cottage when I was 
alone — pray sometimes all night with my face on the cold 
door. But the peace 1 asked for would not come. There 
was always a horror of blackness before me until I came 
here, when the darkness has been clearing, and now there 
is peace and joy, for I feel that God forgives me all my 
sin, and you, my child, have forgiven me too, and called 
me mother^ and Phil is alive and safe. I’ve nothing more 
to live for, and I am so glad to die.” 

She talked but little after that, and when she did speak 
her mind was wondering in the past, now at Chateau des 
Fleurs, now in Rome, where she watched by her mistress’ 
bedside, but mostly in Marseilles, where her baby w’as 
born, “her darling little girl baby,” whom she bade 
Queenie be kind to when she was gone. Then she talked 
of Margery and Paris, and the apartments in the Rue St. 
Honore, until her voice was only a whisper, and Queenie 
could not distinguish a word. She was dying very fast, 
and just at the last, before her life went out forever, 
Queenie bent over her, and kissing her softly, whispered: 

“Mother, do you know that I am here — Queenie — 
your little girl ?” 

“Yes, yes,” she gasped, and a look of unutterable love 
and satisfaction shone in the eyes which looked up at 
Queenie. know 3 ^ou are Queenie — the baby born at 
Marseilles — my own — and you kiss me and call me 
viother. God bless you, my child, and make you very 
happy. I am glad for your sake that I am going away. 
Good-by, my darling, good-by ! ” 

She never spoke again, though it was an hour or more 
before Queenie loosed her hold of the hand which clung 
so tightly to hers, and closing the eyes which looked at 
her to the last, smoothed the bed-clothes decently, and 


SISTER CHRISTINE. 


437 


then going out to Pierre, who was waiting in the hah, 
told him that all was over. 

Sister Christine was dead, an'd there was mourning 
for her in the city where she was so well known, ana 
where her kindness and gentleness and courage had won 
her so many friends, some of whom followed her re 
mains to their last resting-place, and wept for her as one 
long known and well beloved. Every respect which it 
was possible under the circumstances to pay her was 
paid to her. Many gathered about the grave where they 
buried her, just after the sun setting on the same day of 
her death. It was Queenie who prepared her for the 
coffin, suffering no other hands to touch her but her 
own. 

“ She nursed me when I was a baby, and I must care 
for her now,” she said to Sister Agatha, when she re- 
monstrated with her and offered to take the task from 
her hands. 

And to Queenie it was a mournful pleasure thus to 
care for the woman who had been her mother, and who, 
she felt, was truly good and repentant at the last. 

“ I am glad I feel so kindly toward her — glad I called 
her mother,” she thought, and was conscious of a keen 
pain in her heart as she looked upon the white dead face 
on which suffering and remorse had left their marks. 

Notwithstanding the hour and her own fatigue, 
Queenie was among the number who stood by the open 
grave where all that was mortal of Christine was buried, 
and she would not leave until the grave was filled and 
all the work was done. Then, taking Pierre’s arm, she 
went back to the hotel, and going to Phil’s room laid 
her tired head upon the hands he stretched toward her 
and cried bitterly, while Phil soothed and caressed her 
until she grew quiet and could te!‘ him all the particu* 
lars of Christine’s death. 

There was much that Avas noble and good in her/ 


4^8 


FHIVS STORY. 


she said, “and had she lived I would have tried to do 
right, and with you to help and encourage me I might 
have succeeded.” 

“ Yes,” Phil answered her, “ I am sure you would ; 
but it is better for her to be at rest.” 

And Phil was right; for had Christine lived she 
could only have been a source of unhappiness to Queen* 
ie, who, with the best of intentions, could never fully 
have received her as a mother. God knew best, and 
took to himself the weary woman, who had been more 
sinned against than sinning, and whose memory was 
held in the hearts of those whose lives she had been in- 
strumental in saving as the memory of a saint 


CHAPTER L. 

Phil’s story. 

did not tell it until two days after Christine’s 
burial, for Queenie w'ould not listen to him 
until she felt that he was past all possible 
danger of a relapse. Then, with her head 
leaning upon his arm and his hand clasped in hers, she 
heard how he had escaped from death on that night when 
the boat was capsized and he found himself struggling 
for life in the angry waters. 

“My friend wrote you,” he said, “how the accident 
occurred and how for hours we clung to the boat, which 
was beirg drawn rapidly out to sea. For a time I kept 
up bravely, though for myself I cared but little to live, 
life was so dark and hopeless to me then. But I re- 
membered my mother, who would mourn for me, and 
made every possible exertion to hold on. When w< 



PHI vs STORY, 


439 


were capsized I struck my head just over the :emple upon 
some iron surface of the boat, and I know now that the 
blow was of itself almost sulhcient to cause my death. 
As it was, I felt stunned and bewildered and my strength 
was fast failing me when my friend bade me try and 
reach him, as he thought he could help me. I remember 
reaching out one hand toward him, while I tried to 
cl'.ange my position, but my foot was caught in some- 
thing which, when I lost my hold and floated away from 
the boat, was also detached and floated with me. It was 
the grating from the bottom of the boat, and it proved 
my salvation, for, as I came to the surface after sinking 
once beneath the waters, I caught at it and clung to it 
desperately, while the waves carried me far away from 
my companion, who, seeing me go down, naturally sup- 
posed I must be drowned. Indeed, I do not myself 
know how I was saved, or had the strength to endure 
the horrors of that night and hold to my frail support as 
I did. 

“ At last daylight broke over the waters, and a small 
vessel, bound for the southern coast of Africa, passed 
near me as I floated. I had then no power to signal 
them, my arms were so cramped and numb, but one of 
the sailors spied me, and a boat was at once lowered and 
sent to my rescue. How they got me on board I do not 
know, for all sense forsook me from the moment I felt 
a hand laid upon my shoulder, and when next I awoke 
to a consciousness of anything, 1 was lying in a close 
berth, and a dark face was bending over me, speaking in 
a language I could not comprehend. But the voice was 
kind, and the face a good-natured one, and I remember 
thinking that I should be cared for until I reached some 
point where I could make myself understood. My head 
was paining me dreadfully, and was probably the cause 
of the weeks and months of partial insanity which fol- 
lowed. I had taken a frightful cold, a burning fever set 
in, and for days I raved like a madman, they told me 


440 


PHIL'S STORY. 


afterward and made several attempts to throw mysell 
into the sea. It was useless for them to ask me anything, 
as their language was gibberish to me, as mine was to 
them. But one word they learned perfectly — it was on 
my lips so constantly — and that was your name. No 
matter what they said to me, I always answered Queen ie, 
until every officer and common sailor in the boat knew 
the name, and could say it as well as I, though they 
little dreamed who the Queenie was I talked about so 
constantly.” 

“ Oh, Phil !” Queenie cried, with streaming eyes ; 
“ and / was mourning for you, and thinking you were dead, 
and was so sorry for having sent you av/ay. Can you ever 
forgive me, Phil, for all I have made you suffer ?” 

His answer, not given in words, was quite satisfac- 
tory, and then he went on : 

“They thought at last it must be my own name, 
and called me Queenie whenever they addressed me or 
spoke of me. The voyage was rather long, owing to 
adverse winds and the bad condition of the ship, but 
they reached their destination at last, and gave me at 
once into the charge of some English who were living 
there. But these could get no satisfaction from me with 
regard to my home, or friends, or name. I had fallen 
into a weak, half-imbecile, frame of mind, and was very 
taciturn and reserved, refusing sometimes to talk at all, 
though always, when I did speak, begging them to carry 
me home. At intervals I suffered greatly in my head, 
and even now at times, if I touch the spot upon my 
temple when I received the blow, I experience a sensation 
like an electric shock, showing that the injury I received 
was a most serious one. 

“ And so the time wore on, and, as I was perfectly 
harmless. I was allowed to do as I pleased, and gradually, 
as I grew stronger in health, my mind regained its 
balance, and I was able to recall the past, or rather to 
remember up to the time when I was in the water hold- 


PHIL'S STOP Y. 


441 


ing to the grating of the boat. Everything else was a 
blank, and is so to me now. I have no recol’ection 
whatever of the voyage to Zanguibar, or of the months 
which followed my arrival there, and it was some little 
time before 1 could comprehend my position, or realize 
how long it was since I was at Madras and started with 
my friend on the excursion which ended so disastrously. 
My first act was to write at once to my father, who, 

I naturally supposed, must think me dead, but the letter 
was probably miscarried or lost, for it never reached him. 

“ At last a chance came for me to leave the coast, and 
I availed myself of it. An English sailing vessel, bound 
for Liverpool, took me on board, but, as if I were a 
second Jonah, we encountered heavy seas and violent 
storms, so that we were double the usual length of time 
in reaching Liverpool, where I took a steamer for New 
York, where I landed just a week before you found me 
here. Not wishing to shock my family, as I knew they 
would be shocked if they had never received my letter, I 
telegraphed to Mr. Beresford that I should be home on the 
next train from New York. The news took him as much 
by surprise as if one of the dead bodies in the graveyard 
had walked in upon him, and I have been told that all 
Merrivale was wild with excitement, and that Uucle 
Tom, usually so quiet and undemonstrative, went him- 
self and rang the fire-bell, to call the people cut so 
as to tell them the news. I really believe the entire 
town was at the station to meet me when the train ?ame 
in, and had I permitted it some of the men would have 
carried me in their arms up the hill to my very door, ^ 
where Ethel and Grace and grandma were waiting tc 
receive me. Mother was in bed, going from one faint- 
ing fit to another, and father was with her trying to 
quiet her. Poor old father, I used to think he cared 

more for his ferns and his flowers than for his 
children, but I have changed my mind, and never shall 
fcrget the expression of his face when he met me 
19* 


442 


PHI VS STORY, 


at the door, and, leading me to my mother, said to her, 
so tenderly : 

“Here he is, Mary — here is our boy. Now please 
don’t faint again. Praised be God.’ 

“ T^) me he never spoke a word for full hve minutes, 
but sat smoothing and patting my hands, and rubbing 
with his handkerchief a speck of dirt from my coat 
sleeve, while he looked at me so lovingly, with the great 
tears in his eyes and his lips quivering with his emo- 
tions. He has grown old so fast within the last few 
months. His hair is quite gray, and he stoops when he 
walks, though Ido believe he was straighter when I came 
away, and younger, too, in looks. I did not know my 
friends were so fond of a good-for-nothing like me. It 
was almost worth my while to go and be drowned for 
the sake of all the petting I had at home the lew days I 
remained there. But one thing was wanting. You did 
not come to meet me, and I wondered at it, for I think I 
had half expected to see your face among the very first to 
welcome me, and I felt disappointed and a little hurt at 
its absence. I did not know but you were Mr. Beresford’s 
wife, and though the thought that it might be so hurt 
me cruelly, I had made up my mind to hide the hurt 
and make the best of the inevitable. It would be some 
comfort to see you, even if you belonged to another, and 
all the time I was receiving the welcome congratulations 
of my friends, I was thinking of and watching for you. 
But you did not appear, and no one mentioned your 
name until late in the evening, when Ethel asked me to 
go with her for a walk in the garden before retiring, and 
then she told me the strangest story I ever heard of 
you and Margery, who, it seems, is my cousin, while 


He paused a moment, while Queenie turned very 
white, and with a long, gasping breath, said, faintly : 

“Yes, Phil, I know what \ am Don’t remind me 
please.” 


PHILS STORY. 


443 


** Queenic,” and Phil drew the trembling girl closer 
to him, and stroking her bowed head continued : “ Do 
you for a mouient suppose that I have ever given the 
accident of your birth a thought, except to be glad, with 
a gladness I cannot express, that you are not my cousin ? 
And when Ethel told me of your grief at my supposed 
Q(;ath, and the love you were not then ashamed to con- 
fess for me, I felt that I must fly to you at once, and 
only my mother’s weak condition and her entreaties for 
me to wait a little kept me from doing so. She and my 
sisters thought you were in Florida, for Margery had 
kept your secret, as you wished, and had not told them 
of your rash plan of coming here into this atmosphere 
of infection and death. But she told me when I went 
next day to see her, and told me, too, of all the remorse, 
and pain, and bitter humiliation you had endured ; and, 
better than all the rest, of the perfect trust and faith you 
had in me — that were I living a hundred Christines 
could make no difference with me, and she was right. I 
would have called that woman mother for your sake had 
she lived, and treated her with as much respect as if she 
had been Margaret Ferguson instead of Christine Bo- 
dine. My cousin Margery I adopted at once. She is a 
noble woman, and so true to you. By the way, I fancy 
that Mr. Beresford visits Hetherton Place quite as often 
as he used to do in the days when I was so horridly jeal- 
ous of him, and you played with us both as the cat plays 
with the mouse it has captured. And I am glad, for the 
match is every way suitable. Beresford is a noble fel- 
low — a little too proud, perhaps, in some respects, and a 
trifle peculiar, too ; but Margery will cure all that, and 
I would rather see him master of Hetherton Place than 
any one I know, if Margery must be its mistress. She 
wishes you to return and live with her ; but of that by 
and by. When she told me where you were, my heart 
gave a great throb of terror for you, and 1 re.'oh ed to 
start at once and taks you away if I should finu you 


444 


pairs STORY. 


alive. I had a mortal fear of the fever, and this, I think, 
added to my mental excitement and the low state of my 
health, made me more liable to take it, as I did almost 
immediately, for I was sick and unable to leave my bed 
the very first morning after my arrival, and before I had 
time to inquire for you. You know how Christine 
found me and saved my life, for but for her 1 should 
most surely have died. 

“And now, Queenie, I have been talking with the 
physician, who says I must leave the city at once if 
I would recover my strength, and he advises a stay of a 
few weeks in some quiet, cool spot among the mountains 
of Tennessee, where I shall grow strong and lazy again. 
You know that is my strong point — laziness.” 

He looked a little quizzically at her, but she paid no 
attention. She only said : 

“ I think that would be so nice. Have you decided 
upon the place } ” 

He told her of a little spot which the physician had 
recommended, where the air was pure and the water 
good, and then continued : 

“ But I cannot go alone ; it would be so poky and for- 
lorn, with nobody I know. I must have a nurse to look 
after me and keep me straight. Will you go with me, 
Queenie ?” he said, looking earnestly into the eyes which 
met his so innocently, as, without a blush, Queenie 
answered : 

“ Of course I’ll go with you, Phil. Did you think I 
would let you go alone ?” 

She was so guileless and unsuspecting of evil that it 
seemed almost a pity to open her eyes and show her tliat 
the world is not always charitable in its construction of 
acts, however innocent in themselves — that Mrs. Grundy 
is a great stickler for the proprieties, and that for a young 
girl to go alone to a hotel or boarding>house as nurse to 
a young man in no way related to her would make every 
hair of that venerable lady’s head stand upriglit with 


PHins STORY. 


445 


horror. But Phil must do it, both for her sake and by 
way of accomplishing the end he had in view. So 
he said to her : 

“I knew you would go with me; but, Queenie, do 
you know that for Queenie Heiherton to go to the moun- 
tains as a nurse to a great long-legged, rather fast-looking 
fellow like Phil Rossiter, would be to compromise 
herself sadly in the estimation of some people.” 

I doubt if Queenie quite comprehended him, for she 
looked at him wonderingly, and said : 

“I don’t know what you mean by my being com- 
promised. I think it is an ugly word, and not at all one 
you should use with reference to myself, as if I should 
not always behave like a lady, whether I was taking care 
of you among the mountains, or here in Memphis, as I 
am doing now.” 

She was getting a little excited, and her eyes shone 
with the gleam Phil remembered so well and rather 
liked to provoke. 

“Yes, I know,” he said, “but don’t you remember 
what you told me of the cats at the St. James, who used 
to spy upon the young people and make remarks about 
them ? Well there are cats everywhere, and they would 
find us out in the mountains, and however quiet and 
modest you might be, they would set up a dreadful cater- 
wauling because you were with me, and not at all related 
to me. They would tear you in pieces, till you had not 
a shred of reputation left. Do you understand now that 
as Queenie Hetherton you cannot go with me ?” 

“No, I don’t understand,” she answered wrathfully, 
“and I think it mean in you to ask me first if I will go, 
and then, when I say yes, to talk to me about cats, and 
compromise and reputation, as if I were bad, and im- 
modest, and every sort of a thing. No, Phil, I didn’t ex- 
pect this from you ; I must say I did not, and I don’t 
like it, and I don’t like you either — there and I w^n’t 
stay here any longer to hear such dreadful talki” 


PHIL'S STORY. 


4-tfi 

For one who had pledged herself never to lose he! 
temper again under any circumstances, Queenie was a 
good deal excited, as she wrenched her hand from Phil’s 
and flounced from the room, leaving him to chuckle over 
her anger, which he had anticipated, and which he felt 
sure would result in her doing just as he wished her to 
do. And he was right in his calculations, for, after the 
lapse of an hour or two, during which Pierre had brought 
him his lunch, the little lady appeared in a most repent- 
ant frame of mind, and standing by him, with her hand 
on his shoulder, said : 

‘'I am sorry, Phil, I was so angry with you. I did 
not think I ever should be again, but you did rouse me 
so with your cats., and compromising, and all that, after 
you had asked me to go. But I see you were right. It 
would not be proper at all, and people would be sure to 
talk. But you must take Pierre. I should feel safer 
about you, and can do very well without him. I know 
the way to Florida, and shall start to-morrow, for if it 
is improper for me to take care of you in the mountains, it 
is improper here, now you are so much better ; so I am 
going back to Magnolia Park. But, Phil,” and^Queenie’s 
voice began to trem.ble, “ you’ll come there next winter, 
won’t you ? You, and Ethel, and Grace, and Margery ? 
That will make it quite proper and conventional, and it 
is so lonely there.” 

She was crying by this time, and Phil, who. as she 
was talking, had stolen his arm around her, drew her 
down upon his knee and, brushing away her tears, said: 

“Yes, darling, if you are in Florida next winter, or 
next week, I shall be there, too ; for in the words of 
Naon:i, ‘ Where thou goest I shall go,’ whether to the 
mountains or to the moon, and, as the mountains suit me 
best just now, what say you to going there at once ?” 

“But 1 thought you said I wasn’t to go — that it would 
be very disreputable, or some other dreadful word like 


PHIL'S STORY. 


447 


that ? I don’t understand you at all,” Queenic said, hotly, 
and Phil replied: 

“You are an innocent chick, that's a fact, and canrio» 
see through a millstone. I said that as Heiherton 

you must not go scurriping round the world with a 
yellow-haired chap of the period like me ; but as Queen ie 
Rossiter, my wife, you will be a matron sans reproche." 

“ Your wife., Phil !” Queenie exclaimed, starting sud- 
denly and trying to free herself from him. But he held 
her fast, and answered : 

“Yes, my wife, and why not? You are bound to be 
that some time, and why wait any longer? We can be 
married here to-night or to-morrow, if you please, with 
Pierre and our landlord for witnesses, and we shall be as 
firmly tied as if all Merrivale were present at the cere- 
mony. You do not care for bride-maids, and flowers, 
and flummery. I am sure Anna exhausted all that. 
And to me you are sweeter and fairer in this black dress, 
which was put on for me, than you would be in all the 
white satin robes and laces in the world. Shall it be so, 
love ? Will you marry me to-morrow, and at once start 
for Tennessee ?” 

Queenie did not care for satins, or laces or bridal 
favors, but to be married so suddenly, and in such an 
informal manner, shocked her at first, and Phil had some 
little difficulty in getting her consent. But it was won 
at last. A desire to be with him, to go where he went, 
and have him to herself, prevailed over every other feel- 
ing, and early the next morning, with Pierre, and their 
landlord, and the sister who had cared for poor Christine 
as witnesses, Queenie and Phil were married, their wed- 
ding a great contrast to what Queenie had thought her 
wedding would be. But she was very, very happy, and 
Pierre thought he had never see his young mistress 
one-half sc beautiful as she was in her simple black 
aress, with only bands of white linen at her throat and 
wrists, and the brightness of a great happinefs in her 


448 


CONCLUSION. 


face and in her brilliant eyes. She was Phil's at last* 
The joy she had thought never could be hers had come 
to her, greater far than she had ever dreamed, and in her 
happiness all the sad past was forgotten, and she could 
think of Christine without a pang. 

“Next fall we will come here again, and place a 
tablet at mother’s grave,” she said to Phil, and by the 
name she gave the dead he knew that the old bitterness 
was gone, and that Queenie was content. 

They took the first train for Brierstone, a quiet, lovely 
spot among the mountains of Tennessee, where, in the 
cool, bracing air, Phil felt himself growing stronger 
every hour, and where the bright color came back to 
Queenie’s cheeks, and the old sparkle to the eyes which 
had shed so many bitter tears since the day when the 
news first came to her of the lover drowned in the Indian 
waters. 


CHAPTER LI. 

CONCLUSION. 

S soon as they were located in their new quar- 
ters at the farm-house, which they had chosen 
in preference to the hotel, Phil sent the fol- 
lowing telegram to his mother : 

“ Queenie and I were married two days ago, and are 
spending our honey-moon at Brierstone. Margery will 
explain. “ Phil.” 

Margery’s little phaeton, which she had bought for 
her own use, was standing before the Knoll, where she 
was calling, and where Grandma Ferguson was spending 



CONCLUSION. 


449 


the afternoon with her step-daughter, when the telegram 
was received, and thus the parties most interested had the 
news at the same time. And they were not greatly sur- 
prised, except at the place from which the telegram was 
sent. How came Pliil in Tennessee, when they supposed 
him to be in Florida ? It was Margery who explained to 
them, then, what she had purposely withheld for the sake 
of sparing them the anxiety they would have felt had 
they known that not only was Queenie in the midst of 
the yellow fever at Memphis, but that Phil was going 
there, too. Queenie had written her immediately after 
Christine’s death, and had told her of Phil’s illness, but 
added that he was past all danger, and there was no cause 
for alarm. Margery had wept in silence over the sad 
end of one whom she had loved as a mother, even after 
she knew the true story of her parentage. But, like 
Phil, she felt that it was better so, that by dying as she 
did Christine had atoned for the past even to Queenie, 
who must necessarily be happier with her dead than she 
could have been with her living. That Phil should have 
taken the fever so soon filled Margery with dismay lest 
he might have a relapse, or Queenie be smitten down, 
and her errand to the Knoll that afternoon was to tell her 
cousins, Ethel and Grace, the truth, and with them devise 
some means of getting the two away from the plague- 
smitten town. She had told them of Christine’s death, 
but did not say how she received her information, and they 
were wondering why they did not hear from Phil, who 
must have been some days at Magnolia Park, when his 
telegram was brought in, and they heard for the first t; me 
that Queenie had been a nurse in Memphis, and cf her 
falling in with Phil through Christine, but for whom he 
would have died. For a few moments they almost felt 
as if he were dead, and Mrs. Rossiter’s face was very 
white as she listened to Queenie’s letter, which Margery 
read, and in which were so many assurances of his safety 
that her fears gradually subsided and she could at last 


450 


CONCLUSION. 


speak calmly of his marriage, of which she was very 
glad. It was sure to take place some time, she knew, 
and as Queenie ought to be with him during his con- 
valescence, they could not have managed better than they 
did. But she was not willing to have them remain away 
from her any longer ; they must come home at once, anc 
she wrote to that effect to Phil, welcoming Queenie as a 
daughter whom she already loved, and insisting upou 
their immediate return to Merrivale. This letter Phil 
received in the heyday of his first married days, when he 
was perfectly happy with Queenie, who was as sweet, 
and loving, and gentle as a new bride well could be. 

“ Only think, I have not had a single tantrum yet, 
and we have been married two whole weeks,” she said to 
Phil on the day when he received his mother’s letter, to 
which she did not take kindly. “Do not let us go,” she 
said, nestling close to him, and laying her head on his 
arm. “ I am having such a nice time hjere with you all 
to myself, where I can act just as silly as I please. Do 
not go home just yet. I shall not be half as good there 
as I am here.” 

So Phil wrote bis mother not to expect him for a few 
weeks, as the mountain air was doing him a great deal 
of good, and he was growing stronger every day. The 
same mail which took this letter to Mrs. Rossiter car- 
ried one to Margery from Queenie, who wrote in rap- 
tures of her happiness as Phil’s wife, and begged Mar- 
gery to come to Brierstone and see for herself. 

“ There is such a pleasant chamber right across the 
hall from mine, which you can have,” she wrote, “ and I 
want you here so much to see how happy we are, and 
how good I am getting to be.” 

And so one day early in September Margery came to 
Brierstone and took possession of the large, pleasant 
chamber opposite Queenie’s, into whose happiness and 
plans she entered heart and soul ; and ten days after her 
arrival Mr. Beresford came to escort her home. It was 


CONCLUSION, 


45 * 


m settled thing now, the marriage between Mr. Beres- 
ford and Margery, and the four talked the matter over 
together and decided some things to which, without Mr. 
Beresford and Phil, Queenie would never have con- 
sented. It was Margery’s wish that Queenie should 
share equally with her in their father’s estate. And as 
this was also the wish of Mr. Beresford, while Phil him- 
self said he saw no objection to it, and that it was proba- 
bly what Mr. Hetherton would wish, could he speak to 
them, Queenie consented and found herself an heiress 
again, with money enough to support herself and Phil, 
even if he had no business or occupation. They talked 
that over, too, and Phil asked Queenie what she wished 
him to do. 

“The only time I ever tried in earnest to do anything 
I came hear losing my life,” he said, “and so now I’ll 
let you decide for me. Shall I turn lawyer, or preacher, 
or dressmaker ? I really have more talent for the latter 
than for anything else. I might, with a little practice, 
be a second Worth ; or I should make a pretty good 
salesman of laces and silks in some dry-goods store So 
which shall it be — preacher, dressmaker, or clerk ? I am 
bound to earn my own living in some way.” 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Queenie answered, 
warmly. “ A dressmaker or clerk ! What nonsense ! 
You are too indolent to be either ; for, as a clerk, you 
would want to sit down most of the time, and dress- 
making would give you a pain in your side. So you 
are going to be a farmer at Magnolia Park, which 
needs some one to bring it up. With money, and time, 
and care it can be made one of the finest places in 
Florida. Mr. Johnson, who lives on the adjoining 
plantation, told me so, and there are plenty of negroes 
to be hired ; only they must have an overseer, to direct 
them.” 

“ So I am to have no higher occupation than that of 
a negro overseer ! Truly the mighty have fallen !” Phil 


45 * 


CONCLUSION 


said, laughingly, but well pleased on the whole with the 
prospect before him. 

He liked nothing better than superintending out-door 
work, and with Queenie believed that in a little time he 
could make Magnolia Park a second Chateau des Fleurs, 
if indeed he did not convert it into something like the 
famous Kew Gardens in England. It was to be their 
home proper, where all their winters were to be passed ; 
but the summers were to be spent at the North, some- 
times at Hetherton Place, sometimes at the Knoll, 
or wherever their fancy might lead them. 

Thus they settled their future, and when Mr. Beresford 
and Margery went back to Merrivale the latter part of 
September, Phil and Queenie went with them, and were 
received with great rejoicings by the Rossiters and by 
the people generally, while even Mrs. Lord Seymour 
Rossiter^ who was boarding for a few weeks at the hotel, 
drove down to the station to meet them in her elegant 
new carriage, which, with its thoroughbreds and its 
brass-buttoned driver, was making quite a sensation in 
Merrivale. 

Anna was very happy in her prosperity, and very 
gracious to Queenie, who could afford to forget the 
slights put upon her at the St. James when she was lonely 
and sad, and was ready to accept all good the gods oro- 
•nded for her. 

It was late in November when Phil and Queenie 
started at last for their Florida home, where, during the 
holidays, they were joined by Margery, and where a lit- 
tle later Mr. Beresford came to claim the hand of his 
bride, for Margery was to be married at Magnolia Park, 
and the ceremony took place quietly one January even- 
ing, when the air was as soft and mild as the air of June 
at the North, and the young moon looked down upon the 
newly wedded pair. There was a short visit to the St. 
James, where Margery and Queenie reigned triumphant 
as belles for a few weeks, and then won fresh laurels at St. 


CONCLUSION, 


45S 


Augustine and Palatka. By this time Mr. Beresford's 
business necessitated his return to the North, but as Phil 
had no business except to oversee the negroes, and as 
these did not need overseeing then, he and Queenie tar- 
ried longer, and together explored the Ocklawaha and 
the upper St. John’s, and fired at alligators, and camped 
out for two or three days on the Indian River, and 
hunted, and fished, and were almost as happy as were 
the first pair in Eden before the serpent entered there. 

All this was good for Phil, whose constitution had re- 
ceived a great shock from his long illness in Africa, and 
who thus gained strength and vigor for the new life be- 
fore him — that of improving and bringing up Magnolia 
Park, which had so long run to waste. 

It is more than two years now since Queenie and 
Phil were married, and last winter they were at Hether- 
ton Place, where a second Queenie Hetherton lay in its 
cradle and opened its big blue eyes wonderingly at the 
little lady who bent over it so rapturously, and called 
herself its “ auntie.” Queenie has no children, but she 
seems so much a child herself, and looks so small beside 
her tall husband, who can pick her up and sit her on his 
shoulder, or, as he says, “ put her in his pocket,” that a 
baby would look oddly in her arms. Bright, mirthful, 
and variable as the April sunshine, she goes on her wav, 
happy in the love which has crowned her so completely, 
and not a shadow crosses her pathway, except when she 
remembers the past, which at one time held so much 
bitterness for her. Then for a moment her eyes grow 
darker, and with a sigh she says, “ The worst of all was 
losing faith in father.” 

There is a tall monument to his memory in Merrivale, 
and a smaller, less pretentious one marks the grave of 
Christine in Memphis, erected “ by her daughters.” 
This was Margery’s idea, “ for,” she said to Queenie, 
“she was to all intents and purposes my mother — the 
oni» one 1 ever knew.” 


454 


CONCLUSION, 


Mrs. Lord Seymour Rossiter has been in Europe 
more than eighteen months, and has seen every thing 
worth seeing, and has gotten as far on her journey home 
as London, where she is stopping at the Grand Hotel, 
and has a suite of rooms, and a French maid, and a Ger- 
man nurse for the little Paul born a year ago in Florence, 
and who is never to speak a word of English until he has 
mastered both German and French. Major Rossiter is 
there, too, and plays whist, and smokes, and reads the 
papers, and goes to his banker’s, and talks to his vale^ 
whom he employs, he scarcely knows why, except that 
Anna wishes him to do so. 

Anna is very stylish, and grand, and foreign^ and is 
high up in art, and castles, and ruins and knows all 
about Claude Lorraine and Murillo. She breakfasts in 
bed and lunches at two, and drives from five to six in 
Hyde Park, where her haughty face, and showy dress, 
and elegant turn-out attract almost as much attention 
as does the princess herself. Yesterday afternoon I paid 
my penny for a chair, and sitting down watched the gay 
pageant as it went by, and saw her in it, the gayest of 
them all, with her red parasol over her head and her 
white poodle dog in her lap. And when I thought of 
her past, and of Queenie and Margery, whose lives had 
been so full of romance, I said to myself: “Truly, there 
are events in real life stranger far than any recorded in 
fiction.” 

And so, with the summer rain falling softly upon the 
flowers and shrubs beneath my window, and the sun 
trying to breakthrough the clouds which hang so darkly 
over England’s great metropolis, I finish this story oi 
Oueenie. 

London, i88a 


THE END. 


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the best of all of Miss Holley’s works — is full of humorous and 
pathetic incidents, but, as in all this author’s books, the main 
interest is in the wise and witty conversation of Josiah Allen’s 
Wife. Illustrated, 8vo, cloth bound, $1.50. 

SAMANTHA AT THE ST. LOUIS EXPOSITION 

By Josiah Allen’s Wife (Marietta Holley). The warm welcome 
given to Miss Holley’s books the world over has been accorded 
to this one of her best productions. It is full of the same deft 
mixture of wit and pathos, eloquence and common sense, 
which has given her an enviable place among the writers of 
toKiay. Samantha describes, with her customary fidelity 
and eloquence, the wonders and glories of the great Exposition. 
She and Josiah meet many prominent people, and have num- 
berless mirth-provoking adventures. Illustrated, 8vo, cloth 
bound, $1.50. 

THE SECRET PASSAGE, a Detective Story 

By Fergus Hume. “Fully as interesting as his former books, 
and keeps one guessing to the end. The story begins with 
the murder of an old lady, with no apparent cause for the 
crime, and in unraveling the mystery the author is very clever 
in hiding the real criminal. A pleasing romance runs through 
the book, which adds to the interest.”— A Evening J ournal. 
12mo, cloth bound, $1.25. 

THE SILLY SYCLOPEDIA 

By Noah Lott. “ A terrible thing in the form of a literary torpedo 
which is launched for hilarious purposes only, inaccurate in 
every particular, containing copious etymological derivations 
and other useless things. It is one of the cleverest, most 
scintillating little bunches of foolishness that has appeared 
in many moons. There is not a dull page in the book.” 
New Orleans Picayune. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth bound, 75 cents* 


THE PEARL AND THE PUMPKIN 

By Paul West and W. W. Denslow. “Belongs to the same class 
of books for children with ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘The 
Wizard of Oz.’ Get the big, handsome book, where Paul 
West tells all about it, and W. W. Denslow has illustrated 
the stopr with a whole book full of the funniest colored pictures 
that will keep the eyes big and round with surprise and the 
sides shaking with laughter .” — Cleveland Plaindealer. Illus- 
trated, 4to, cloth bound, $1.50. 


DENSLOW»S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. (30th 
Thousand) 

The old classic story, illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Here is the 
best Christmas story ever told. The man is yet to be bom who 
can write anything to supersede what has made St. Nicholas and 
his tiny reindeer living and breathing realities to millions of 
children throughout the world. 

Embellished, as it is, with the whimsical humor of Mr. Denslow’s 
inimitable drawings, produced in colors by the most beautiful 
printing, it will eclipse all other juvenile pictui-e: books of the 
year. A large quarto, handsomely bound in c^oth or illumi- 
nated board cover, $1.50. 

DENSLOW’S ONE RING CIRCUS, and Other Stories, 
containing; 

One Ring Circus, 5 Little Pigs, ABC Book, 

Zoo, ^ Tom Thumb, Jack and the Bean-stalk. 

The six, bound in cloth, decorative cover, $1.25. 

DENSLOW’S HUMPTY DUMPTY, and Other Stories, 
containing: 

Humpty Dumpty, Mary had a Little Lamb, 

Little Red Riding Hood, Old Mother Hubbard, 

The Three Bears, House that Jack Built. 

The six, bound in cloth, decorative cover, $1.25. 

DENSLOW’S SCARECROW AND THE TIN-MAN, and 
Other Stories, containing: 

Scarecrow and the Tin-Man, Barnyard Circus, 

Simple Simon, Animal Fair, 

Mother Goose ABC Book, Three Little Kittens. 

The six in one volume, bound in cloth, $1.25. 

DENSLOW’S PICTURE BOOKS FOR CHILDREN 

The above 18 titles are also published in paper covers, 25 cents 
each, or roounte<^ linen, 50 cents each. 


THE INTERNATIONAL SPY, Secret History of the 
Russo-Japanese War 

By Allen Upward (“ Monsieur A. V.”). In circles of diplomatic 
intri^e, accidents do not happen. It was the recognition 
of this little-known fact that gave Monsieur A. V. his oppor- 
tunity to become the Sherlock Holmes of international diplo- 
macy — the man in the confidence of the monarchs of Europe, 
who interprets the occurrences of the Underground History of the 
World. The book is filled from opening to ending with en- 
trancing mystery. Illustrations by F. X. Chamberlin. 12mo, 
cloth bound, $1.50. 

REAL BOYS, Being the Doings of Plupy, Beany, Pewt, 
Puzzy, Whack, Bug, Skinny, Chick, Pop, Pile, 
and Some of the Girls 

By Judge Henry A. Shute. Author of “The Real Diary of a Real 
Boy,’’ “Sequil,” etc. “This book is well named. Judge 
Shute, who will be remembered for his ‘Diary of a Real Boy’ 
and ‘Sequil,’ writes very happily of life in a New Hampshire 
village forty years ago, and men who are fortunate in not 
forgetting their own boyhood days will enjoy many a hearty 
laugh as the pages are turned. ”-;-AetyarA; Evening News. 
Embellished with nearly 40 illustrations, 12mo, cloth bound, 
$1.25. 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE, Being Further Adventures 
of “ Captain Kettle ” 

By Cutcliffe Hyne. “It has the dash and tinge of reality that 
makes you feel as if you were in the midst of it all.” Detroit 
Free Press. 

“The many readers who followed with bated breath the wild ad- 
ventures of Captain Kettle in the book named for him, will 
welcome Cutcliffe Hyne’s new collection of tales dealing with 
that remarkable sea dog. The volume is well called ‘ A Master 
of Fortune .’” — Philaddphia Press. 

“Nobody who has followed the gallant sailor — diminutive, but oh, 
my! — in his previous adventures around the earth, is going to 
miss this red-hot volume of marvelous exploits.” — N. Y, World. 
Illustrated. Cloth bound, $1.50. 

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY COOK-BOOK 

By Mrs. C. F. Moritz and Adele Kahn. A modem and complete 
household cook-book such as this is, since cooking has come to be 
a science no less than an art, must find a welcome, and become the 
most popular cook-book of all the many now published. 

♦'It can hardly be realized that there is anything worth eating that 
its receipt cannot be found in this volume. This volume has 
been carefully compiled, and contains not only the receipts for an 
elaborat"! menu, but also the modest ones have been considered.” 
Book ami NemdM&r* Bound in oil cloth* for kitchen use, $1.59. 


ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS, Memories of Famous 
Men and Women of the Platform and Stage 

By Major J. B. Pond. These biographical sketches of notable 
Orators, Preachers, and Lecturers, descriptive of the personal 
traits of character of the many noted persons who have publicly 
appeared under the managenient of Major Pond, are thrillingly 
and forcibly told. A magnificent octavo volume containing 
nearly one hundred half-tone portrait illustrations. Cloth 
bound, $3.50. 


UNDER A LUCKY STAR, a New Book on Astrology 

By Charlotte Abell Walker. Tells what occupation to adopt, and 
what line of life to follow, what associates and partners to choose, 
how to recognize the possibilities and limitations of our friends 
and ourselves, and of other important matters to human life, 
including suggestions on marriage, being, mainly culled from the 
minds of ancient and modern philosophers. Illustrated, cloth 
bound, $1.50. 

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES 

From the Pinkerton Archives. By Cleveland Moffet. The ab- 
sorbing stories told here by Mr. Moffet are statements of actual 
facts repeated without exaggeration or false coloring. The 
author, by the help of the Pinkerton Agency, has given the inside 
history of famous cases which the general public only know of 
through newspaper accounts. Cloth bound, 75 cents. 

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ARTEMUS WARD 

By Charles Farrar Browne. With a biographical sketch of the 
author by Melville D. Landon. The present edition is of a work 
which has been for more than thirty years prominently before 
the public, and which may be justly said to have maintained 
a standard character. It is issued because of a demand for a 
better edition than has ever been published. 

In order to supply ^is acknowledged want, the publishers have 
enlarged and perfected this edition by adding some matters not 
heretofore published in book form. 

A large 12mo, printed from new electroplates, with 28 full-page 
illustrations, and photogravure portrait of the author, hand- 
somely bound in cloth, gilt top, $2.00. 


THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE 

By Cutcliffe Hyne. The best sea story since the days of Marryat. 
Captain Kettle is a devil-may-care sea dog, half pirate and half 
preacher. The author carries him through many hairbreadth 
escapes and makes him a character that will live long in the 
annals of fiction. The success of this book is marvelous. Over 
80,000 copies have been sold. Illustrated. Cloth bound, $ 1 . 50. 


6 


A SPECKLED BIRD. (looth Thousand) 

By Augusta Evans Wilson. ^'How absolutely sweet and clean 
and wholesome is the atmosphere of the story! It could not 
be anything else and come from her pen.” — Brooklyn Eagle. 

“Will be read with avidity by the multitude, because it lays 
bare the great emotions that appeal to universal human sym- 
pathy.” — Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer. 12mo, cloth 
bound, $1.50. 

NORMAN HOLT, a Story of the Army of the Cumberland 

By General (Capt.) Charles King. “No more charming historic 
war story 1ms ever been written. It is Captain King’s best, and 
bearing, as it does, on the great battle of Mission Ridge, although 
the story is woven in fiction, it adds an invaluable record of that 
gigantic contest between the two great armies. 

*‘The characters are real, their emotions natural, and the romance 
that is interwoven is delightful. It is wholesome and one of 
General King’s best, if not his best, book.” — N. Y. Journal. 

“From the first chapter to the last page the interest of the reader 
never fags. General King has written no more brilliant or stir- 
ring novel than ‘Norman Holt.’” — N. Y. Press. Illustrated, 
cloth bound, $1.25. 


THE IRON BRIGADE, a Story of the Army of the 
Potomac. (Fourth Edition) 

By General Charles King. Illustrations by R. F. Zogbaum. In 
choosing the subject of this story General King has taken one of 
the most gallant and heroic organizations of the Civil War, and 
woven aroimd it many intensely interesting historic scenes. 
Sketches of Lincoln, Stanton, Grant, Meade and other prominent 
characters of the time lend much to the holding power of the 
story. Illustrated. Cloth bound, $1.50. 

THE BLACK MOTOR CAR 

By Harris Burland. “In the way of exciting fiction there could 
be nothing more discreetly sensational than this story. It 
fairly bristles with wonderful incidents in which a woman 
who has betrayed a lover, dishonest for her sake, is pursued 
relentlessly by her victim. Those who like their fiction well 
spiced with stirring and surprising incident will appreciate 
this remarkable story.” — Boston Budget and Beacon. Illus- 
trated, 12mo, cloth bound, $1.50. 

A COIN OF EDWARD VII 

By Fergus Hume. Yhe Nashville American says'. “It has an 
attraction that borders on fascination. This story is in Fergus 
Hume’s best style, and is particularly noted for the ingenuity 
of its construction and skill of working out details.” 12mo, 
cloth bound, $1.25. 


7 


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